Research Symposium

BIO

Ava Werner is a freshman student in FSU Honor's Program studying English Literature Media and Culture, along with a minor in Art Entrepreneurship. Ava is a lifelong lover of music and literature, so this overlap has become a niche interest for her research ambitions. She is involved in FSU campus housing as Historian for the JRB residence hall through the Inter-Residence Hall Council, as well as a member of National Residence Hall Honorary. Ava is also a writer for the FSU View Campus Newspaper, and she is pursuing other research projects for the upcoming academic year. In her free time, Ava can be found attending concerts, spending time at the beach, making art, baking, or reading a new book.

The Literary Bildungsroman in the Multi-album Lyricism of Lorde

Abstract

Music and literature have the power to illuminate shared experience, providing comfort to a reader (or listener) that they are not alone. Historically, the Bildungsroman is a genre that embodies this comfort, by providing children or young adults with stories of a fellow young person branching out to face the world, learning about themselves in the process. For my research I chose to focus on the commonalities between pop-music, namely the lyricism of Lorde, and classic examples of this esteemed tradition in literature. I have always been a lover of music and an avid reader, so I noticed the structural overlap between what we consider "merit-worthy" literary works, and the lyricism of contemporary musicians. In this research I hoped to demonstrate the necessity of opening the literary canon to create space for a broader range of artists to be included, specifically under the tradition of the Bildungsroman. This research is relevant to the academic treatment and studying of pop-culture and it's artistic impact.

Keywords: English Music Literature