Growing up in a society obsessed with the concept of sappy love stories, it is easy to find flaws with the unrealisticness of such accounts of love. Songwriter Taylor Swift contributes to the popular trend of mainstream love stories in her own composition, “Love Story.” Throughout her song, Swift effectively incorporates the use of various figurative devices to relate her own love story with that of the famous Shakespearean lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Swift conveys the strength of her forbidden love, in similarity with that of Romeo and Juliet’s, through the use of metaphors, hyperboles, and allusions.
First and foremost, Swift uses clear examples of metaphors throughout her song to maintain the resemblance of Romeo and Juliet’s love story with her own love story. Throughout the song, as it will be described later, Swift makes multiple comparisons between her lover as Romeo and herself as Juliet. For example, she states, “That you were Romeo,...’Stay away from Juliet!’” In this case, Swift names herself Juliet and compares her lover to Romeo. Additionally, Swift continues to state, “You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess.” In this quote, Swift evidently dictates her lover’s role and her own role in their relationship. She, in fact, refers to her lover as the prince, and as for herself, she is the princess. To add, Swift comforts her lover through song as she sings, “... we’ll make it out of this mess.” In this metaphor, it is eminent that Swift is declaring the