A Modern Day Romeo and Juliet

Taylor Swift’s music video, “LoveStory” displays a parallel to William Shakespeare’s tragic play “Romeo and Juliet” through the use of intertextuality. Swift starts out in the video daydreaming about a boy across her high school campus. Her daydream takes her back to Britain in the 1500’s, roaming around castles while wearing a ball gown and high heels. Swift goes from dancing in a ballroom to leaning over the side of a balcony singing to her potential Romeo and eventually dancing with her love interest.

Intertextuality is defined by a certain text referring or borrowing content from another text. It can be further defined in two different ways, implicitly and explicitly. Implicit intertextuality is when the reference is subtle and not directly made. Explicit intertextuality is when there is an outright reference to another text. “Love Story” uses explicit intertextuality by comparing Taylor Swift and her love interest to Romeo and Juliet.

An example of explicit intertextuality is when swift sings, “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone”. This is a direct reference because she used Romeo’s actual name. This is significant because she is making a direct comparison between her love interest and Romeo, which is seen as a storytelling device. By doing this, the characters were further developed into specific roles. This reference made it obvious that they were modeled off of Romeo and Juliet, which instantly romanticized them and made them out to have this beautiful “love story”.

Another example of explicit intertextuality is when she sings, she sings, “and my daddy said stay away from Juliet”. Romeo and Juliet came from feuding families, so Swift is once again comparing her life to the lives of Romeo and Juliet by stating that her family does not get along with the family of her love interest. This allows the characters to be relatable to the audience and also allow them to be able to relate to them through the cultural reference frame.

An example of implicit intertextuality is when Swift is leaning over the balcony signing to her guy. By waiting around on the balcony suggests that she is a damsel in distress waiting around for her Romeo to come and save her from her unreasonable family. This refers to the famous scene where Juliet is standing over a balcony looking down to Romeo while they confessed their love for each other. Though it is not outwardly vocalized that that is what they are refereeing to, it is implied that she is attempting to imitate the famous balcony scene in the actual play of Romeo and Juliet, which is what makes it implicit.

Intertextuality can be used as a storytelling device to make advances in the plot line and to build character development. By making the characters more relatable it is easier to get emotionally invested in the song and the story line of the music video in general.

In conclusion, the music video “Love story” has several references to the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet through the use of intertextuality. By using content from the tragic play, Taylor Swift’s love life was implicitly and explicitly compared to the lives of Romeo and Juliet.  This allowed for the characters to become more than just a basic couple because they were compared to one of the greatest love stories of all time.