eTaylor Swift as Albinaf

In The History of the Kings of Britain, the British people possess an awesome semi-historical, semi-mythological origin story that involves a valiant Trojan ancestor named Brutus arriving at the shores of England with a company of his fellows, overcoming the resident giants, and “bre[eding] a new people in the new land” (Drukker 451). In order for Brutus to do so rightfully, of course, his act must derive from selflessness, from a desire and ability to create order out of chaos and benefit the law-abiding citizens accompanying him. Consequently, not only do they find themselves in need of a new home Britain could provide, under the command of a daring leader who conquered their oppressors, they also confront inhabitants the text gives a gruesome history and a disgusting set of personal characteristics—thereby justifying their extinction.

            The native monsters’ background begins with the Albina myth and the islands’ first supposed arrivals, an account that lays claim to various interpretations. One of them goes as follows: long ago, in Syria, King Dioclisian and his wife Labana organized a great feast and invited all the princes and knights from the region to arrange marriages between them and their daughters. Afterward, the girls, discontent because they felt they married below their ranks, took their eldest sister Albina’s suggestion and rebelled against their husbands by refusing to perform their marital duties. When the men complained, King Dioclisian summoned his children to court and reproached them, prompting Albina to later assemble her siblings and propose they assassinate their spouses—a crime they committed that very night. When daylight revealed their atrocities, King Dioclisian exiled them from his kingdom, ordering them into a ship supplied with six months’ provisions, and they eventually happened upon an empty England. Then Albina named it Albion after herself, the group settled there, and the devil satisfied their sexual cravings, which resulted in the birth of wild and lawless ogres (Drukker 454-455).

            Interestingly, twenty-first century pop icon Taylor Swift’s song “New Romantics” perfectly encapsulates this peculiar narrative and its related justification of Brutus’s wholesale slaughter of the original English goliaths—with a modern twist. Looking at the lyrics from Albina’s perspective makes for a literarily significant enjoyment, as an analysis of a few choice stanzas demonstrates.

           

"New Romantics"

Seeing as a woman sings the work, its title implies a warping of standard social conventions concerning female roles in romance and hints at the creation of a radically different lifestyle for them.

We're all bored; we're all so tired of everything

We wait for trains that just aren't coming

We show off our different scarlet letters—

Trust me, mine is better

Albina and her cronies eliminate the males in their lives owing to a shallow revulsion following from the suitors’ perceived lack of prestige. A singer “bored” and “tired of everything,” awaiting a romantic change that will never come and daydreaming about past episodes, mimics such mingled superficiality and aspiration.

We're so young, but we're on the road to ruin

We play dumb, but we know exactly what we're doing

We cry tears of mascara in the bathroom

Honey, life is just a classroom

Homicide certainly symbolizes “the road to ruin”; Albina and her crew “play dumb, but … know exactly what [they are] doing.” In addition, their forced partnerships cause them private pain and teach them, in their eyes, that life presents a mere “classroom” of hardships.  

'Cause baby I could build a castle

Out of all the bricks they threw at me

And every day is like a battle

But every night with us is like a dream

In a recurrent glimpse of foreshadowing, the first half of the chorus, by means of referring to constructing a castle using thrown bricks, directly relates to Albina and her cohorts building their own civilization in Britain posterior to their exile—something they achieve through “battl[ing]” during the day and “dream[ing]” at the devil’s side at night.

Other noteworthy lines…

It’s poker—he can’t see it in my face

But I’m about to play my ace

Murder, anyone?

The rumors are terrible and cruel

But, honey, most of them are true

Like the ones about the plotted murders. All true, guys, sorry. All true.

*Link to Thirty-Three Murderous Sisters: A Pre-Trojan Foundation Myth in the Middle English Prose “Brut” Chronicle by Tamar Drukker: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3661507?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents