Taylor Swift’s religious lyrics prove Mr Bennet right

Dr Belle Tindall says Taylor’s new album Tortured Poets Department is an ode to Romanticism with language that ‘has Jesus all over it’.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet has a conversation with his favourite daughter, Lizzy, about her older sister’s heartbreak. He says,

‘Your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.’

It’s one of those lines, genius as it is, that I would hate were it not written by Jane Austen.