{"id":2662,"date":"2020-10-23T20:34:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T20:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=2662"},"modified":"2020-12-07T22:13:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T22:13:31","slug":"literary-celebrities-as-musical-celebrities-an-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/literary-celebrities-as-musical-celebrities-an-exploration\/","title":{"rendered":"Literary Celebrities as Musical Celebrities: An Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3022\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2020\/10\/CELEBRITIES-300x300.png\" alt=\"decorative art\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2020\/10\/CELEBRITIES-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2020\/10\/CELEBRITIES-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/248\/2020\/10\/CELEBRITIES.png 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Because I teach literature, the idea for this blog post came from the classroom: how do you explain the persona of an author in terms that students can immediately grasp?\u00a0 How do you explain what it means to call someone a &#8220;Byronic figure,&#8221; or teach students to recognize the subtle disdain of Jane Austen&#8217;s narrator?\u00a0 Then, with a little help from an essay on pop music by Alva No\u00eb that I&#8217;m teaching in Expository Writing, the answer hit me: the most recognizable personas of our time largely belong to pop stars.\u00a0 The comparisons below are what I came up with, but if you have any suggestions of your own please let us know; if we get enough ideas we can make a follow-up post!<\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft \" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/a\/a0\/Byron%2C_George_Gordon_%281788-1824%29%3B_alias_Lord_Byron%2C_schrijver_en_dichter%2C_Mauzaisse%2C_Jean-Baptiste%2C_Felixarchief%2C_12_12873.jpg\" alt=\"Lord Byron\" width=\"157\" height=\"220\" \/>Lord Byron is The Weeknd<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Byron epitomized the tragic, haunted hedonist, both in his poetry and his troubled personal life.\u00a0 His poetry is sexy on the surface, but with a world-weary melancholy always close behind\u2013\u2013much like The Weeknd\u2019s hits <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dqt8Z1k0oWQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cCan\u2019t Feel My Face\u201d<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yzTuBuRdAyA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cThe Hills,\u201d<\/a> in which self-medication through sex and drugs seems only to numb a sadness that\u2019s always just below the surface.\u00a0 (Warning: in case that wasn&#8217;t clear, these songs may not be safe for work!)<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emily Dickinson is Billie Eilish<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dickinson famously remained obscure until her death, when her verses were discovered stashed in drawers in her bedroom.\u00a0 (Eilish started in obscurity and has guarded her privacy too\u2013\u2013imagine if Dickinson could have posted her poems on YouTube!)\u00a0 The two are drawn to similar kinds of haunting imagery and blank, detached moods, as well.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/45703\/i-heard-a-fly-buzz-when-i-died-591\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cI heard a Fly buzz\u2013\u2013when I died\u201d<\/a> sound like it should be an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HUHC9tYz8ik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eilish lyric<\/a>?<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oscar Wilde is Lady Gaga<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright \" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/c\/ce\/Oscar_Wilde_MET_DP312880.jpg\/351px-Oscar_Wilde_MET_DP312880.jpg\" alt=\"Oscar Wilde\" width=\"144\" height=\"246\" \/><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With a flamboyant personal style and a legendary wit, Oscar Wilde was a queer icon before the term even existed; even a queer martyr, as he was jailed for his homosexuality and died at 42 in exile.\u00a0 Like the artist behind <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fame<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fame Monster<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Wilde\u2019s image as a celebrity was in a lot of ways about celebrity itself\u2013\u2013he famously said that \u201cthe only thing worse than not being talked about is not being talked about,\u201d and (when asked to declare items at Customs) \u201cI have nothing to declare except my own genius.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Keats is Bon Iver<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A sensitive soul who wrote odes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44478\/ode-on-melancholy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cTo Melancholy\u201d<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44484\/to-autumn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cTo Autumn,\u201d<\/a> if Keats were alive today he\u2019d have an Instagram full of out-of-focus photos of secluded cabins and a closet full of flannel shirts.\u00a0 Enough said.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">David Foster Wallace is Tool<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, I\u2019m calling myself out as much as anyone: in high school and college I LOVED both David Foster Wallace and Tool, and I still like both (as artists, if not as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2018\/05\/the-world-still-spins-around-male-genius\/559925\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">people<\/a>).\u00a0 But fans of David Foster Wallace, like fans of Tool, have a certain <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/8104-lateralus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reputation<\/a> for being pretentious\u2013\u2013and for insisting that if you don\u2019t like it then you must not \u201cget it.\u201d\u00a0 So the next time you\u2019re at a party and you see a guy prominently displaying a dog-eared copy of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Infinite Jest<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, engage at your own risk: like the novel, the conversation may be long and packed with footnotes\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jane Austen is Cardi B<\/span><\/h4>\n<h4><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/f\/f9\/Jane_Austen_by_Cassandra_Austen%2C_gro%C3%9F.jpg\/444px-Jane_Austen_by_Cassandra_Austen%2C_gro%C3%9F.jpg\" width=\"180\" height=\"243\" \/><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you read Jane Austen for tales of true love and impeccable manners, I have some bad news for you: the real Austen is, as the kids say, \u201csavage.\u201d\u00a0 Jane Austen\u2019s narrator has an aloof, subtle, acid wit and a keen eye for markers of status\u2013\u2013every time you see a reference to a horse-drawn coach, think of it as a Coach bag!\u00a0 Austen\u2019s intoxicating style goes hand in hand with these flashes of disdain and cold-eyed materialism.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, according to scholars, Austen\u2019s work is more politically astute than you might recognize at first glance &#8212; much like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B0YVd-PAJDk\/?utm_source=ig_embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">amateur Presidency scholar <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cardi B.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because I teach literature, the idea for this blog post came from the classroom: how do you explain the persona of an author in terms that students can immediately grasp?\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/literary-celebrities-as-musical-celebrities-an-exploration\/\" class=\"\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27,32,34,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cookreads","category-little-free-library","category-rugrat","category-staff-picks","category-stressbusters"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Literary Celebrities as Musical Celebrities: An Exploration - Books We Read<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/literary-celebrities-as-musical-celebrities-an-exploration\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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