folklore: The Rhetorical Analysis
Taylor Swift released her 2020 album folklore, which many people believe is her deepest album with the most gut-wrenching songs. Throughout the album, Swift discusses personal emotions such as suicidal thoughts, regretting her entrance to the music industry, living to please others, and highlights the betrayals of her career. Taylor Swift's album folklore creates the overall message that the music industry fosters an extremely toxic environment and exemplifies how it impacts artists' mental health and well-being through metaphors, imagery, and symbolism.
Before analyzing this album, it is important to know what folklore is: mythical stories and tales passing down generations, often ending with a moral lesson showing the reader what is right and wrong. Swift wrote this album in isolation during quarantine, the only people she had contact with were the writers and producers for this album. With all this alone time on her hands, she spiraled into a depression
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Swift published her primer to folklore on Billboard in 2020, writing an essay setting her fans up for her new release. She describes folklore as “the lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact.” The biggest metaphor in this album is the title itself, as we can only assume that this album is a folklore, created to prevent the listers form making the same mistakes as she did. In this way, the album title is metaphorical because the songs on the album are not necessarily based on real-life events but rather on fictional or mythical stories that may have some connection to