While They’re in the World
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Rocketman
Film directed by Dexter Fletcher
Paramount Pictures

Madame X
Album by Madonna
Interscope Records

IT’S HARD TO SAY which hit maker, Elton John or Madonna, had a better summer. The former is the subject of a riveting new biopic, Rocketman, the latter the creator of an ambitious new LP, Madame X—both tributes to the creativity and staying power of their subjects.

Colin Carman, PhD, author ofThe Radical Ecology of the Shelleys (Routledge), is 2019’s residential fellow at the Jane Austen House, Library and Museum in Hampshire, England.