‘Ambition is a punishing sphere for women’: author Maggie Nelson on why Taylor Swift is the Sylvia Plath of her generation

<p>What do Swift and Plath have in common, and should Kamala Harris have spoken out about her political ambitions? The Argonauts author turns her lens on poetry, pop and patriarchy</p><p>Maggie Nelson is an&nbsp;unapologetic Taylor Swift fan. She knows the discography, drops song lyrics into conversation and tells me she took her family to the Vancouver leg of the Eras tour. So she’s a dyed-in-the-wool Swiftie? Nelson seems not entirely comfortable with the breathless connotations of that term but yes, the&nbsp;love is real. So much so, she has written a book about the billionaire singer-songwriter, or rather, a joint analysis of Swift and Sylvia Plath, who recurs in much of Nelson’s oeuvre.</p><p>The notion of uniting these two cultural titans, who are seemingly poles apart in sensibility – one a melancholic American poet, the other&nbsp;an all-American poster girl – came to her when she heard Swift’s 2024 album, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/19/taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department-review-fame-fans-and-former-flames-in-the-firing-line">The Tortured Poets Department</a>. Alongside its literary references to F Scott Fitzgerald, Dylan&nbsp;Thomas and Shakespeare, there&nbsp;are heavy resonances of Plath in&nbsp;its introspection and emotional tumult. But the book only started to take shape&nbsp;after a chat with her 13-year-old son’s&nbsp;friend, Alba. “We were making bracelets and she said ‘Have you ever heard of Sylvia Plath?’ I&nbsp;thought that was funny because I’d written my undergraduate thesis on Plath and I was [almost] 40 years older than her. So I said: ‘I <em>have</em> heard of Sylvia Plath.’ As I sat there, I thought, these kids don’t want to hear me talk on this topic but I have a lot to say because I’ve&nbsp;been thinking of it all.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/09/ambition-is-a-puni