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The Love Triangle within Taylor Swift's Folklore
Taylor Swift released her eighth studio album titled folklore,  in July 2020 during the pandemic, and most critics categorise it as an  alternative, indie folk and electro-folk album. The third person narrative deviates from her earlier work, and coincides with the folklore aesthetic of the album.

Swift explores the fictional love triangle between the teenagers named James, Betty and Augustine. With a song written from each perspective within the sixteen tracks, it details the story of the adolescent love between James and Betty, and James and Inez's sensitive affair. Falling in between songs recounting the history of Swift's own home when Rebekah Harkness took residence beforehand, and those referencing classical literature like Jane Eyre and William Wordsworth, Swift took a new direction with folklore by utilising an entirely fictional story rather than her own personal relationships.

Betty - Cardigan
The trilogy is introduced with the second track cardigan written from the character Betty's perspective. The track tells of adolescent love, deep loss and treachery within infidelity and the extreme emotions in the first experience of those events. With critics describing the song as a "myriad of memories", Swift begins the story with the past tense, following the style that is introduced in the title. In the documentary that follows Swift's own narrative on the album, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions streamed on Disney+, she explains "what happened in my head is that ‘Cardigan’ is Betty's perspective from like 20 to 30 years later looking back on this love that was this tumultuous thing". . She utilises tricolon, alliteration, metaphor and similies throughout the song to recount the haunted relationship of Betty and James; who remains unnamed at this point in the narrative. Betty details both parts of her relationship, describing the course of the relationship as well as the aftermath.

"To kiss in cars and downtown bars

Was all we needed

You drew stars around my scars

But now I'm bleedin'"

Betty highlights the simplicity in their love, that all they needed was each other's company, as well as the emotional weight he lifted as he helped her heal. However, the weight is returned and added to in his absence, as her heartbreak had re-opened her "scars". Swift shows the all-consuming aspect of first loves, and reiterates the same line "When you are young, they assume you know nothing" which emulates the same attitude towards childhood as during the Romantic period. Romantic poet William Blake published his two-part poetry collection "Songs of Innocence and Experience" which details the juxtaposition of the youthful naivety and the weighty responsibility of adulthood, and Swift echoes this throughout the track. The thematic element of adolescence and naivety is constant throughout the trilogy.

James - Betty
Despite being named after his lost love, the fourteenth track titled "Betty" is from the perspective of James, as we see the oppositional narrative to "cardigan". The tone of the track contrasts that of its counterpart, the themes of the lyricism varying slightly from everlasting heartbreak to a more playful aspect, which mirrors the attitude of both characters. James' infidelity is what catalysed the break-up and the track details his blame-shifting as he states "the rumours from Inez", and as he acts nonchalant about his "summer fling". The repeated rhetoric questions and his focal argument that he's "only seventeen, I don't know anything" juxtaposes that of Betty's "they assume you know nothing".

The track builds with James' growing self-awareness of where it went wrong, while also displaying an insincerity in his apology. As he mentions Augustine from the affair throughout the track, he portrays her as the reason for his infidelity.

"I was walking home on broken cobblestones

Just thinking of you when she pulled up like

A figment of my worst intentions She said "James, get in, let's drive"

Those days turned into nights

Slept next to her, but

I dreamt of you all summer long"

Swift draws literary parallels between James' narrative and Betty's, the mentioning of the 'cardigan' and the motif of 'cobblestones'. After introducing the story with the whimsical imagery, and a music video that is described as a visual oasis, inspired by the fantasy films Swift was watching at the time of creation, it creates a naivety and magical essence to the story from the female perspective. With the addition of the male perspective, the conversational tone and direct speech destroy the imagery created of the fantasy, dreamlike love story. James' ignorance in his own retelling allows the audience to see the truth without Betty's bias.

Augustine - August
Swift places Augustine as the eighth track in the album, being the middle narrative between the primary couple. The track shares the same tone as "Cardigan", the young, female image of love and the expectations they hold. The dream pop song has Augustine narrate her grief over her summer romance with James. Swift wrote "August" as the first track on the album, and in the trilogy, to explore the idea of an undefined relationship. Despite James' attempt within "Betty", the audience can sympathise with Augustine as she describes a relationship that she wanted to work.

"But I can see us lost in the memory

August slipped away into a moment in time

'Cause it was never mine"

Swift creates depth to the triangle, by destroying the 'Other Woman' trope, like describes in an earlier song Better than Revenge.