A Jane Austen Novel Told by Taylor Swift

For my film thesis, I’m adapting Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park into a feature-length screenplay, and the proper soundtrack is imperative. Classical music would suffice; Gregory Alan Isakov gets closer; but Taylor Swift perfectly captures the highs and lows, expectations and surprises, of a Jane Austen novel. She literally has a song for every imaginable romantic situation. Her discography could be mined for years and we still wouldn’t know all there is to know. It is a bottomless depth. 

Jane Austen only finished six novels during her life, but I believe her work is also a bottomless depth. I could say a lot about the similarities between Taylor Swift and Jane Austen, but I will save that for another day. The point I mean to make is that you can string any number of Taylor Swift songs together to fairly accurately summarize a Jane Austen novel. Because I constantly have Taylor Swift on shuffle, I happened to be listening to her music while I wrote my thesis and realized these women are telling the same story. 

I now present to you the (rough) plot of Mansfield Park told through Taylor Swift songs. Without spoiling too much of the novel, Mansfield Park is about Fanny Price, a poor and quiet girl, who is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams. The family is negligent of her, except the middle son, Edmund, who quickly becomes Fanny’s best friend. Over a few tumultuous years and distraction by alluring strangers, Edmund and Fanny’s relationship becomes a sort of will-they-won’t-they. I’ll let you infer the ending by listening to this playlist.

My playlist version of Mansfield Park is bookended by songs from Lover with a whole lot of folklore and evermore in the middle. Some of my favorite picks are “Haunted” off of Speak Now and “Dear Reader” from Midnights; these tracks are given new meaning when viewed through the lens of Jane Austen. And my honorable mention is “ivy” because no song captures Edmund and Fanny’s relationship quite as perfectly.

I hope you enjoy listening to this playlist as much as I enjoyed making it. Perhaps it will even inspire you to pick up Mansfield Park for yourself.

— Shea Humphries