People & Figures

21st century

Member of indie rock band The National. Producer and multi-instrumentalist known for atmospheric, literary indie rock.

20th–21st century

Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter. Known for poetic, politically engaged lyrics. 'Blowin' in the Wind' is among the most celebrated protest songs ever written.

Ancient Greek

Trojan prophetess in Greek mythology, cursed by Apollo to speak true prophecies that no one would believe. Ultimately proven right but never heeded.

French / 19th–20th century

French Impressionist painter who painted the same subjects repeatedly to capture different impressions of light. Famously described his garden pond as 'heaven.'

13th–14th century

Author of The Divine Comedy — Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. The foundational text of hell, purgatory, and heaven as realms a living person navigates.

Welsh / 20th century

Welsh poet known for lyrical, sonically intense verse and a romanticised image of the tortured artist. Famous for 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.'

American / 20th century

American poet known for rejecting conventional capitalisation, punctuation, and poetic form. Styled his own name in lowercase.

19th century

Master of gothic horror and psychological suspense. Known for The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and poetry exploring loss, madness, and death.

American / 19th century

American poet and author (1850–1919), known for sentimental and inspirational verse. Most famous for "Solitude" (1883): "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone."

19th century

Author of Wuthering Heights and a significant body of poetry. Known for gothic romance, wild moorland settings, and passionate doomed love.

19th century

Reclusive American poet known for compressed, dashed verse exploring death, immortality, nature, and love. One of America's most original poetic voices.

Ancient Greek

Wife of Orpheus in Greek mythology. Lost to the underworld and then lost again when Orpheus looked back against the gods' instruction.

20th century

Author of The Great Gatsby. Associated with the Jazz Age, the American Dream, and doomed romanticism built on illusion.

British / 21st century

British singer and former member of One Direction. Solo artist known for his evolution into a critically acclaimed pop and rock musician.

Ancient Greek

Author (attributed) of The Iliad and The Odyssey — the foundational texts of Western literature. The Odyssey charts a hero's long journey home.

Ancient Greek

Son of Daedalus in Greek mythology. Given wings of wax and feathers; flew too close to the sun, melted his wings, and fell into the sea. Symbol of hubris punished by catastrophic fall.

21st century

Prolific pop producer and songwriter. Member of Bleachers and fun. One of pop music's most successful and distinctive producers.

21st century

American actor known for films including Brokeback Mountain, Nightcrawler, and Donnie Darko.

18th–19th century

Novelist of manners, wit, and ironic romantic observation. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility. Known for precisely observed social comedy and romantic intelligence.

20th century (fictional)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's protagonist in The Great Gatsby — a self-invented man who pursues an idealised version of the past and is destroyed by illusion.

British / 21st century

British actor. Taylor's partner from approximately 2017 to 2023. Also co-wrote songs with Taylor under the pseudonym William Bowery.

19th century

Romantic poet known for rich sensory imagery and odes exploring beauty, mortality, and the tension between ideal and reality. Died young of tuberculosis.

21st century

American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Known for blues-influenced pop rock and a reputation for public romantic controversy.

16th century (fictional)

Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth — a character consumed by guilt who cannot wash imagined blood from her hands. Her obsessive hand-washing is one of literature's most powerful images of inescapable guilt.

21st century

Nashville songwriter and Taylor's early co-writing partner. Known for her ability to capture authentic teenage emotion in lyric form.

19th century

Romantic poet notorious for his scandalous life and darkly passionate verse. 'Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.' Associated with the Byronic hero — brooding, charismatic, self-destructive.

British / 21st century

Lead singer and frontman of British indie band The 1975. Known for charismatic but controversial public persona.

20th–21st century

One of pop music's most successful producers and songwriters of all time. Known for crafting perfect pop hooks.

Ancient Greek

Gorgon of Greek mythology whose gaze turns onlookers to stone. A figure of dangerous female power, often read as a symbol of the monstrous feminine.

21st century

Nashville producer who worked with Taylor from the very beginning of her career through the Big Machine era.

American / 20th century

American pop singer-songwriter known for catchy, emotionally direct songs about love and heartbreak. Famous for 'Breaking Up Is Hard to Do' (1962).

American / 20th–21st century

Poet associated with the Black Arts Movement and civil rights. Known for accessible, emotionally direct work about love, loss, and political struggle.

Ancient Greek

Musician of Greek mythology who descended into the underworld to retrieve his dead wife Eurydice, only to lose her again by looking back.

19th century

Playwright and author known for wit, paradox, and the tension between social performance and authentic self. Author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

American / 20th–21st century

Singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist associated with the New York punk scene. Known for fusing poetry with rock music. Author of the memoir Just Kids.

Ancient Greek

Wife of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. Waited faithfully for twenty years, weaving and unweaving her tapestry to delay unwanted suitors.

Ancient Greek

Greek goddess of spring abducted by Hades to rule the underworld. Her annual return to earth causes spring; her absence causes winter.

American / 20th century

Director of Field of Dreams (1989) — a film about a man who builds a baseball field on faith and hope, believing the ghosts of baseball legends will come.

20th century

Rhode Island socialite, arts patron, and oil heiress. Owned a mansion at Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Known for her extravagant lifestyle and complex legacy.

American / 20th–21st century

American actor, director, and producer. Best known for directing a run of acclaimed films across multiple genres in the 1980s and 90s, including Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, and Misery.

American / 20th–21st century

Prolific American author of horror, supernatural fiction, and psychological suspense. One of the best-selling authors of all time, known for explorations of obsession, captivity, trauma, and the darker aspects of human psychology.

20th century

Confessional poet and novelist. Author of The Bell Jar and the poetry collection Ariel. Known for raw emotional precision, dark imagery, and themes of rebirth and destruction.

American-British / 20th century

Modernist poet and literary critic. Nobel laureate. Known for The Waste Land and the formulation 'the purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.' His initials TS parallel Taylor Swift's.

20th century (fictional)

Character from The Wizard of Oz who presents himself as ferocious and brave but is actually deeply cowardly. His roar disguises his fear.

Ancient Greek

The three sisters of Greek mythology — Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (measurer), Atropos (cutter) — who weave the thread of every human life and determine its length.

20th century

Modernist novelist and essayist. Known for stream-of-consciousness technique and exploration of interior emotional states. Author of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.

16th–17th century

England's greatest playwright. Author of Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and the Sonnets.

American / 20th–21st century

Writer-director known for neurotic romantic comedies and literary, self-referential storytelling. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) explores the collapse of the boundary between fantasy and reality when a film character steps off the screen.