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Our Favorite Tortured Poets
Taylor Swift and her various modern idiots join a long line of pop-culture poets sanctimoniously performing soliloquies.
Over the years, numerous films and TV shows have depicted struggling sonneteers and vexed versifiers, ranging from the real and acclaimed (see Shakespeare in Love) to the fictional and striving (see Dead Poets Society). Over the course of his epic career, Ginsberg raged against the perils of conformity (a topic Swift has covered herself in songs like “The Outside”), capitalism, militarism, and more — as captured in numerous onscreen portrayals, most notably the middling 2010 film Howl(starring James Franco as the poet) and the flawed but far more watchable 2013 drama Kill Your Darlings(with Daniel Radcliffe taking on the role). Much of this psychological and physical torture was portrayed in Jane Campion’s 2009 romantic drama Bright Star, featuring Ben Whishaw as the writer and Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne, whom Keats loved but couldn’t commit to in part due to his lack of career success.
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