The Swiftie and The Scholar - The Mosaic of Love in State of Grace

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Today we return to Angela’s beloved Red era with State of Grace! Uncle Jerry surprises her with his excitement about the poem, and they go through all the ideas of love Taylor presents throughout the opening track.And there’s gravy all over the plate!Works Cited:In medias resKinetic or kinesthetic imageryMetonymyParallel structureA Midsummer Night's Dream – William Shakespeare – Aff LinkConcrete PoetryA to Z Horoscope Maker and Interpreter – Llewellyn George – Aff LinkSynecdocheSynecdoche vs. metonymyLitotesThe Literate Mode of Cicero's Legal Rhetoric – Dr. Richard Leo Enos Ph.D. – Aff LinkManos: The Hands of Fate – (1966)Hesiod – Richard Lattimore – Aff LinkSonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun – William ShakespeareTricolonThe Swiftie and The Scholar Grading MatrixFollow Us:Patreon⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠Threads⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠Uncle Jerry’s Instagram

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What? Did that the first line? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Oh my gosh. Stop.

The Swiftie and the scholar, the podcast where we examine the lyrics, lore, and literary legacy. Oh, we're going to examine them today, baby. Of Taylor Swift. I am Angela McDowell, the Smithy. And I'm throwing down as Dr. Jay, the scholar. Uncle Jerry's been on steroids.

Oh, I'm telling you. The gravy is running all over my plate today. That's a thing my previous boss used to say, the VP of our campus. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It means I got it all over the plate. This is a great song. I'm ready to grade. Okay.

100. Yeah, I mean, I agree, but we'll get there. I really like this song. Okay. Spoiler. I don't know if you can tell. He's very excited. Gravy all over the plate.

Okay, come on. Okay, today. Today. We are covering. Yeah, you have to be in a state of grace right now. I know, I do. You should be chill. Okay.

Is that what that means? So I reach out and get one of my, you know, I don't know. Religious ornaments. Oh, maybe. Okay. Okay. Today. Today.

We are covering state of grace. from the best album known to man, Red. That's what you say. That's why you're dressed like what you dress. Yes, I would like to say that I feel like everyone has opinions on how I choose the songs for this podcast. No.

And I don't always even agree with my choices. I'm going to be honest. You can imagine her talking at her bathroom. Angela, what do you think? No, literally, like in the mirror, like, Angela, what are you doing? Red is my favorite album, and we have covered one song from Red. Travesty!

In almost a year. So wrong. Only all too well. I mean, I guess technically, too, because we did the regular version and the 10-minute version. But just know that I have hated myself for not putting more Red songs on to our little show here. But I'm trying to rectify that today by covering State of Grace. This is the album opener from Red from 2012. So Taylor would have been like 20, 21, maybe 22, and she was writing this song.

That's impressive. Yes. Yeah, that's why I'm telling you. Wow. See, okay, so she tells me these things like just before we start. The date is right there. I know I see the date. But you said, this is the first song on the album.

And it's like, we talked last night about doing this one. I actually told you then probably. Yeah. I said, this is like a manifest. on the nature of love. And then she says, well, this is the first song. I'm going, well, it's the linchpin to the album.

No wonder it's the first song. It helps me understand how to interpret the poem. Sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. Should I start giving you full track list? No? Cravy all over the plate, people. Okay, this is a weird one today.

Apologies. The energy is heightened. There you go. This is. self-written. This is written only by Taylor. Oh, Jack. No, this is pre-Jack. Okay. So this is produced

by Taylor and Nathan Chapman, who also produced the original All Too Well. Produced a lot of songs on this album. Never forget that. Yeah. And yeah, that's all I have. I think this is a perfect album opener. Sorry for not telling you earlier. This is Taylor's fourth

album. So while she was only 20 or 21, she did have three other albums under her belt. So. A capacious belt, that is. Exactly. That's right.

So, yeah, I'm ready to hear what you have to say. I feel like you have a lot of notes and you're very excited. Okay. A, I do have a lot of notes. And B, yeah, I really like this work. Yes, it reminded me of other writers in the most positive light. Okay. So, are you ready to begin?

I'm ready. State of grace Yes From the album read Yes 2012 Yes So the title

A state of reconciliation Or sin With sin or imperfection Allowing time for the divine To come into one's own life Living under the divine friendship With the assurance of forgiveness Grace

Living with divine favor Okay It's a lovely title Yes And it examines one of the most Lovely of Human Elements The Nature of Love So yes I really liked it

Lyrics Yes It begins In Medea's race In the middle of things Yes right Because the first verse says I'm walking fast through

the traffic lights, which is actually physically impossible if you think about it because, you know, traffic lights. It walks through a traffic light. Yeah, I can't do that. But I think I catch her meaning. So, Jerry's one and only prediction about the nature

of the music. Yes. You know, last time I didn't predict, because I said, I don't know, I'm interested here. You know it's going to be a fast beat. You know it's going to be thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, right? It's going to be like a drumbeat or it's going to be like a guitar,

bum, bum, bum, I don't know, something, but it's going to be, it's going to be, It's going to be that. Because it's about progressing through life and love. I'm walking faster the traffic lights, visual imagery. We immediately have the setting as an urban scene with motion. Yes. Right.

Symbolism, metaphor, traffic lights are decision points. Right? You think about what they do. Green go, you know, yellow, be cautious in life. Red, better stop and go around. That's like in Death by a Thousand Cut. when she says, I have the traffic lights, if it'll be all right? And they say, I don't know.

They say, IDK, yes. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I actually did think of that. I didn't write in my notes. That's good. Yeah. I should probably add that.

I do try to keep, like, I go back over in my notes. Yeah. But when you have this much gravy on the plate. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, it's both symbolic and it's metaphorical, right? The traffic light is a metaphor for life's intersections, for the stop and go, for the interplay of, you know, and if you, if you understand later on, she's going to be examining the nature of love and all of its ramifications, then you're looking at this, you know, at

intersections, when do you stop with love, when do you go with love, when should you be cautious with love, when is there an intersection? Yeah, when do you turn and go the other way? Exactly. It also is filled with kinetic imagery. Like, you know, you feel the sense of motion, which is why I'm kind of jazzed up right now. It's not because of my decaffeinated. Yeah, it's caffeine-free.

caffeine-free coat. So, you know, the second line just pushes that kinetic imagery. Yeah. Busy streets, busy lives. So we have repetition. We have parallelism, repetition of busy. It creates rhythm, right? It says, bump, bump, bump, you know.

So it's going to push us. It's going to impel us down the road. Can't avoid love. It's alliterative. The bouncing of the bees kind of bops the poem along. bouncing bees pop. Beautiful. Yes.

Yeah. No. And lots of S's. Busy streets, busy lives. It's also metony, right? Representation of a part

for the whole. So the streets stand for more than just a street. It's the modern world. The whole modern world is whirling around us in motion.

You know, everything's busy. Everything's going. And you, you are in the middle of that. You. And I are in the middle of that trying to discern what direction do we go with love. Yeah. Yeah, I think it also, I think the line, busy streets, busy lives emphasizes our emotional and physical isolation.

It's almost ironic, right? So it's almost the setting becomes ironic because you're surrounded by a whole bunch of people. You're surrounded by motion and where am I to go? Mm-hmm. You know, and so I live in this social activity, and yet we are one self-contained tiny little human being. You're on your own, you might say. Yeah, you could say that, kid. And all we know is touch and go.

Okay, notice the shift to the plural collective we. Oh, yeah, because she's walking. Right, she's walking. You know, the poem starts with I'm walking. Yeah. But all we know, everything we know around us is. is just touch and go. It could come, it could go.

And notice, I mean, I wondered who the we were. Is it we all people, or is it we, the couple she's going to establish with the other, with a significant other, with a fiery love? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it could be ambiguous, right? It could be both. It could be ambiguous. Yes, ambiguity.

You know, all we know also creates suspense, right? there is, there's no answer in the line. What do we know? What is it all that we know, you know? And so it's like, I want to know, what is this poem about, you know, the first time I read it. Yeah, you can't, you have no clue yet. Right. Yeah.

I don't know that it's an examination of the nature of love yet. I mean, it's Taylor Swift, for goodness, but it's more than that. It's a more comprehensive look than I've seen in her other poetry. That's honestly, people, that's why I'm kind of excited because it is, it is a, it is a, it is a greater treatment of the nature of this abstract concept we call love. Was that particularly nice? I just liked it. Okay, good.

So, and all we know is touch and go also has internal rhyme, right? No go? And then if you look at the internal rhyme, no go could no be hominiferous, that is, could it be a homonym? So no, K-N-O-W, no-no, no-go. Love is no-go, K-N-O-W, love is no-go. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is so clever. If she intended that, Graz T-S, because that is a really clever hominiferous phrase. It's idiomatic. Touch-A-go, right? Touch-A-go refers to uncertainty, the unstable nature of life. Life is unstable. It's also foreshadowing. All of it.

in one line, foreshadowing because of the fragile nature of our relationship. She's questioning her stability. And it's paradoxical. Because if you touch, you're close, but then you go. And so she's contrasting

closeness with emotional distance. So in this one line, all we know is touch and go. We have the shift of the plural collective. We have a suspense created by all we know. We have internal rhyme, idiomatic phrases. foreshadowing a paradox.

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Moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Oh my gosh. Is Red going to be your favorite album? I don't know. This is cool. So I know everybody's saying, I don't know if I've seen him that excited before. Yeah, this is, I'll settle down from now on. You don't have to. This is a literary expression of a very high order. Oh, my goodness. We are alone with our changing minds, you know. So again, she, you know, she, you know, she, hints at that idea of emotional distance with touch and go. And then she fulfills that with we are alone, with our changing minds.

And it's paradoxical. This is two paradoxes in a row, right? The paradox, if you're close enough to touch, then you go. But then also, we is plural. And so how can you say we are alone? And it's ambiguous. Does she mean we, the two lovers? or does she mean we all people who are alike in our loneliness?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you ask Taylor Swift, I hope her answer would be yes. Yes. So we also have some really interesting psychological imagery because we have this kind of internal conflict growing. You know, we're changing our minds. We're alone.

And we have the introduction of what I think is one of the major themes of the poem. agree. Human unpredictability, undecisiveness becomes central to this work. Yeah. Love is unstable and it contends with evolving personalities and evolving identities, right? Who you are may change from moment to moment. You know, have you ever had those tests where it's like you're one of four types of people? Mm-hmm.

Or you're one of eight types of people. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? Read the psychological literature on that. But not just that, not just that's been strongly questioned, but also from moment to moment you change. You know, you're one person right now and then you're in a traffic accident.

And you really can shift in terms of yourself, identity, and appraisal for a moment. I mean, you're basically going to be the same human being, but, you know, if someone you love passes away leaves you or enters your life in great happiness, you know. you can shift and alter perspectives and personalities. And not indelibly and not maybe completely. But I think that's an important thematic idea that human unpredictability and human indecisive changeability, that love is unstable. Yeah.

And that's okay. It's the way it is. Yeah, this is the nature of being a person. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what you just said demonstrates the,

the level of realism that we see in this work as well. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. We fall in love till it hurts or bleeds. Okay, so this is personification. She is, we fall in love until it, it, what? The love itself. Uh-huh. We bleed, we hurt, but love hurts.

At least that's what soft self over. I was going to say, there's a song about that. Love! It's okay, I won't say it. So, yeah, we've got personification. It's also hyperbolic. It's also violent imagery. It's also metaphorical.

Emotional pain becomes physical pain. Right? So we're looking at a metaphor. The line, you know, it plays into that romantic trope that love equals suffering. Love hurts, right? Yeah. So, I don't know. It's so simple and yet so packed with really nice literary development.

on the nature and theme of love. Yeah. Or if it doesn't just hurt or bleed, or it fades in time. So it is subject to times bending sickles. Oh yeah, you've said that before. Yeah, I know. Shakespeare. Yeah, every really pretty thing I say, Shakespeare.

Yeah, and this you're saying, like, the realism and she's talking, like, from the start of this, like, it's going to fade or hurt or something. Like this, I think, is the first album where, like, if we think about just the album before this was Speak Now, and that's where the song Enchanted lives. Oh. So the album right before this, she was still like, everything is a fairy tale. Right. You know, that's interesting. That's this idealized version of love.

Yeah. And then she had, you know, one relationship with one man who was too old for her, and it, like, completely, I mean, while that's terrible, it did, I think, paint her. a more realistic version of what love actually is like as an adult. See, we'd like to think that love is unchangeable, you know, that love is not love that alters when it's alteration finds, or bends with a remover to remove. Oh, no, it is a never-fix-it mark that looks on tempest and is not shaken. But in reality, that's not the way love is.

You know, it's love is unpredictable. It's we are indecisive. We are unstable. Or we fade in time. Temporal imagery. Juxtaposition, the previous line says love hurts or bleeds, but this one, it fades. It quietly deteriorates. So you get this juxtaposition of one line says love can be violent.

The regression of love might be violent. But this one says, no, the regression of love might be slow, gradual. it might, you know, just simply fade. She's essentially, you know, our friend T.S. is proposing two different fates for the nature of love, right? We have a dramatic collapse. I hate you. Or we have a gradual erosion.

You know, I hate the way you smack your lips. Honey, I've been doing it for 12 years now. Well, it just now got to me. Yeah, but what's interesting about it, is they're both true? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's what makes the poem really good. Yeah.

And we're at the end of the first verse. Yes. Also, I guess I made a little note, the ellipsis of expectation. I just like that phrase. That it fades in time. And she doesn't go into how or why. Yeah. Yeah. It's just out there. It's just we know it's true and we know when it happens to us, you know, but I think it happens to us each in our own different ways. For sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually wrote like a paragraph comment. Okay, give it to us. Give it to us. Tell us. I said, note, the typical tailor.

Okay, okay. Typical tailor use of Sysura in the first five lines. It's omitted in the final lines to add a segue into the verse. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's very clever connected device. I mean, If you look, I'm walking fast, pause through the traffic lights. Busy streets, pause and busy lives. And all we know is touch and go. We are alone with our changing minds. We fall in love until it hurts or bleeds. So you've got to pause that Sychira in the middle of every line.

And then in the last one, or fades in time. Uh-huh. And then we just, it just, there's dot, dot, dot. basically. Yeah, and what's interesting about that is, and I tried to remember, you know, I only had this yesterday, so sorry people, I've only had this one day. I mean, you sent it to me, but I was on vacation for a while. And so I just, I don't want Taylor.

I ain't read none of that stuff. I won't get smarter. But, and I rack my brain that cannot remember who does this, but I've read another author who does this where the author will, will give us two halves of lines, two halves, two halves, to have to, and then just leave us with one. And the expectation is you will fill in the suspended line. Yeah, your brain is just supposed to. Right.

So I'm walking fast through the traffic lights. Busy streets, busy lies. All we know, touch and go. And so we are alone. We fall in love or we lose love as it fades in time. Right. So we, I mean, our minds will fill in the suspended statement. Yeah.

And that's really good writing. Okay, so people, how far are we into today's episode? Fifteen minutes? Yeah, maybe. If someone ever tells you she's not a good writer, show them this first verse and let's talk about it. Yeah. Because this is really good stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, I love the typical Taylor use of the Sciura. I love the fact that she suspends it for the final line. Secondly, the parallel syntactical structure is really clever. Look at the prepositional phrases that create the Sciurai through the streets with our changing mind till it hurts. Yeah, yeah. Parallel syntactical structure, very clever. And then look at the fact that formal end rhyme isn't present, but note the use of assonance. It's like the driving wheel of sound devices in this verse.

I mean, look at the long eye. That's what I was just looking at. Lives, minds, time, right? They're all at the ends of lines. Lights, lines, line one, line two, then line four, minds, then the last line time. And it binds the sonic elements together for the whole ball. It's not rhyme, but it is true assidence. It is true rhyming vowel sounds.

Nice, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, anyone who says this isn't poetry is patently wrong. And that is what Dr. Uncle Jerry said. And I'm sticking to it. That's that. Or if you really want to know, seriously, another way to look at it is Grady all over the plate. That whole first has got it.

Okay, chorus. Are you picturing that like with biscuits or like with a chicken fried steak? Yeah, like chicken fried steak. Yeah. Mashitas. Delicious. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I'm picturing. Chorus. Yes. So simple, you know, so exacting syntactically. And I never saw you coming and I'll never be the same, right? Three words, three words, three words, three words, right? So you have syntactically, wonderfully parallel, you have repetition of never at the first and third line.

You know, you have the eye in the middle of the first. first and third line. You know, these lines are just so tight, compact. The first line, and I never is hyperbolic. Notice we're back to first person singular. Right. So now we're not talking about she and the lover. She's not talking about the entirety of the world.

She's just, she's internalizing this. And I never. And then we have suspension of the line, you know, and so it creates tension. It creates emotional emphasis. She never what? Yeah. And there is like, like playing this in my head, there is, musically, there's like a long pause after each of these lines.

Is there? Uh-huh. Yeah. I wondered that's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The one prediction is that driving line.

Uh-huh. The fast beat, the fast pace. Yeah. The ongoing rush of love. Saw you coming is an idiomatic phrase. Uh-huh. But it's also like surprise motif. You know, I never saw you coming.

I never saw it. You know, but then, you know, who does? expect love or the Spanish Inquisition. And, you know, that love and, I think she's saying love and important people and important events sometimes appear in our lives at unseen moments. This helps us define, again, the nature of love. Okay, so I've been quoting Shakespeare a lot. And I'm going to pause and just say is that a lot of great writers have tried to

to examine the nature of love. And one of my favorites, Shakespeare, you know, if you read those 154 Shakespearean sonnets, you know that many of them look at love from both sides now. But one of my favorites really is Midsummer Night's Dream. Okay. Because in Midsummer Night's Dream, he tries to define the nature of love, you know, what love does to us, and under what characters love presents itself to us. And in the fifth act, he, you know, he has this great, great speech by one of the characters who says,

love is a madman, love is a fool, you know, love is insane. And he goes through and he tells us why love does all these different things to us. I think she's doing that in this poem. She says, love comes to us in an instant. Love grows on us over time. Love can leave us in an angry moment, bloody. Love can simply fade. But it changes us.

And it changes us every time. Yeah. And I'll never. Repetition parallel structure, create cemetery with the first line, and I'll never and I'll never be the same. Transformational motif. Yeah. It's also hyperbolic, right? Yeah.

I mean, you'll still be kind of the same. It also shows internal character development if this is a narrative about her, her, her personal loves, which, you know, it may or may not be. And the fact is, I don't care. Sorry to be so blunt. I think there's lots of people that are happy to hear you say that honestly. They all go, this is just about Taylor. No, it's about all of us.

The universality of the idea of love is something that she's trying to examine. She's holding it up to a light. And I think that's more important than just her life. Absolutely. So thank you very much for agreeing. Yeah. It would have left me very upset. So, yeah, she's characterizing love as permanently altering our personality or our identity or ourselves.

And maybe that's the nature of love too. And then I have a comment on the chorus. Okay. Don't fail to notice those short bursts, the sudden chance. I mean, you realize she says love comes upon us in an instant, but she is painting a verbal picture of that. the page. Right? Three words,

three words, three words, it's like love, comes, boom, hey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So literally it's on the page what she is trying to say.

So it becomes, I would make a claim that in a way the chorus is a form of concrete poetry. Yeah. Right, where the words represent

the image she's trying to listen on the page. Yeah, especially with the contrast to the longer lines in the verses. Exactly. Yeah, if you look at the verse, you can go back and you think about the Sciura that's bound up in parallel phrasing, and then this is just bam, bam, bam, bam, I think that it makes us, it forces us as a reader,

it forced me as a reader to reflect on the Sciura in the verse, right, as opposed to the short bursts of syntax in the chorus. Interesting, yeah, yeah. So, again, very, very lovely poem. impetus. Verse two. This is fun. This is going to get a high grade. I can tell.

You come around and the armor falls. Okay. Note the shift to second person address. Okay. So thus far we've had first person her. We've had first person plural, us, we or she and lover. But now for the first time we have.

have an actual you. You. Talking to someone else, you come around the armor falls. Is she talking to another person? Is she addressing the audience generically? So you, you know, everyone knows when love enters, you know, our armor tends to drop away. Yeah. Or is it both?

So again, I'm gonna say, I think Taylor Swift, I would hope she would say yes, yes, I mean that guy, or I mean your significant other, or I mean maybe both. Leave me alone. Yeah. We have a metaphor, the armor. Okay, so, you know, the emotional defenses that we put up in love, we want to be self-protective. You know, a new love interest comes into our life. We don't immediately reveal all of our secrets, all of ourselves.

We don't hand, you know, the keys to the metaphorical car over immediately. We have medieval imagery And I think that the nature of time is also You know at question here She talks about how love fades in time You know she talks about the rapid pace of the city So time and pacing is always part of this poetic idea So yeah I think medieval imagery is appropriate

How long have we known love? We the human collective Since forever Right Yeah And it's also symbolic. You know, the armor that falls away, you know, when we fall in love, we replace, you know, our self-protection with vulnerability. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. And so now we have another definition of love. And I think that you could go through this poem. You can start writing down all those definitions. All the like love is this like you've talked about before.

It's my last page. Oh, okay, no spoilers. Love yours. And I think this is a really defining image for the poem, too. It's nice placement at the start of the second stanza. Yeah, because that's how everything changes. Is that how it changes you as it makes your armor falls. Yeah, makes your armor fall, yeah.

Pierce the room like a cannon ball. So again, you know, we talked about last week how she likes to bind images together. So the armor should protect us from being. being pierced, but here the armor is dropped away. And when you come in, you pierce the room like a cannonball. Again, notice how she carries over phrasing. Yeah. So you come around and, you come around and.

You come around and the farmer falls. You come around and you pierce the room like a cannonball. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Very clever stuff. Yeah. We have a simile like a cannonball, you know, comparing his impact to a cannonball. That's significant. So love hits us.

Love pierces us. It's military imagery. Love is a battlefield. Right. The Great War, you might say. You could say it's a great war. And, of course, this is hyperbolic. And the question that she doesn't answer here, not immediately, is, is the new person's presence?

Is it explosive? Is it disruptive? Is it destructive? Okay. It explodes onto us. What does it do to us? What does it do to me? Now, all we know is, don't let go.

So we're going back repetition from the first line of the stanza. And we have the imperative language. There's no program, just, there's no pronoun here. You know, don't you let go. It's don't let go. Right. It's an imperative statement, just don't. It is a theme of preservation, hang on for dear life.

the cliche would be. So the couple has kind of evolved into the uncertainty of commitment. She says, we are alone, just you and me, intimacy. Well, that's the alone again. Alone again. With more than one person. Naturally. Yeah.

Do I just say alone again? Yeah. Okay, yeah, note the contrast from the first stanza. Note that in the first couple of lines, we have a crowded city. Mm-hmm. But all of that seems to have disappeared. Yeah. Okay.

So it begs the question about another definition for love. Is love consuming? Is love isolating? Is love exclusive? Can you only love one? Mm. You know? So, I mean, essentially, I guess it causes us to examine.

It's like she's got this multifaceted mosaic. and she's asking us to turn it over in our minds, you know, and say, okay, what is love? Up in your room and our slates are clean. So they're up in the room. They're alone. They're isolated. They're intimate. We have a clean slate, so symbolic and idiomatic.

So they're renewing. Everything else is forgotten. Everything else is. We're brand new. We're new. It's also a metaphor. Relationships always begin without a past. And maybe they should.

You have a past, but your relationship doesn't have a past. Right, right, right, right. Right. I don't know. It just, it's interesting. Yeah, the idea that there's no burdens, there's no encumbrance on a new relationship. Now, I'm not talking about you, like you had boyfriends or something, you know, but, but. We.

Yeah, this thing is new. This is new. And maybe that's another definition for love. Right. Love in this infancy is always something new and unique. I like it. So they go into that room. I wondered if this was an allusion to the upper room.

Oh. Right? From our biblical imagery, Christ in the upper room. You know, being intimate with. others, the concept of rebirth, forgiveness, just us. Well, I mean, that does make sense if we're in a state of grace. And we're in a state of grace. Uh-huh.

Yeah. And then we got this great line, just twin fire signs for blue eyes. Nice, Sychura, astrological imagery. The three fire signs are Arias Leo Sagittarius. Taylor's a Sagittarius. I looked at them. Look at you. Just mere weeks ago, you said, I don't look things up.

I don't look things up. I don't, you know, I try to stay away from biographical criticism. Angela. People out there. I not only looked that up. Oh, no, you looked up. Who she's dated, that's also a fire sign. I looked up Jake Gillenhol.

He's also. So is Sagittary? He sure is. I didn't know that. I lucked it out. There are twin fire signs, and they both have blue eyes. Wow. Look at that.

Every now and then biographical criticism. I know Vivian is laughing at me. Right now, Vivian, you stop it. She is. Every now and then, yeah, biographical criticism. Okay, but why fire signs? Let me get my... Oh, yeah.

the big old book about astrology. My horoscope maker and astrological. Incredible. Yeah. Why fire signs, you know, fire signs when they interact with one another, obviously tend to generate heat. They tend to feed on one another's passion. They're also very creative signs, not as creative as a Libra.

I mean, Libras are clearly the most artistic and creative of all, especially if you're born with the planet Venus moving through. a very significant way. So you're a double Libra. But it's another discussion. I should say that I am a quadruple Sagittarius. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

While we're talking about our personal signs. Chase always said you were hot. I thought he meant argumentity. That too. Yeah. But they, okay, so, but they do. They feed on one another's passions, their creativity, they're enthusiastic. and apparently they don't last, but, you know, that's another whole thing.

She and Jake. These are metaphors, the signs equal the people involved. These are symbols, you know, beyond the fact that they are horoscopic representation, you know, fire represents energy, it represents passion. It can also represent danger. It can also be consuming. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So it's like that idea of a rose. You know, Rose has thorn. Every rose has its thorn. Every cowboy sings a sad, sad song. I know people are going to think, they got really silly. Yeah. Did Uncle Jerry do drugs before this? Smart of you people. It's this coat. But, you know, it is that double-sided symbolic element, you know, fire like a rose has thorns. You know, so Rose.

Rose, you know, Rose does not last very long. It's delicate. If you thump it, it bruises. You know, the same thing with fire. It's, it can create heat. It can be creative. It can be beautiful. It can be transforming.

But it can also be consuming. And destructive. Destructive, yes. So love is all of that. This is also synecdoche. Obviously, for blue eyes. There are not just eyes in the room. Right, right.

Right. Or metonomy. Yeah, the eyes stand for the people. who are there. Color imagery. Blue often symbolizes sincerity. Okay. Right.

Depth, vulnerability. Okay. So really the only interesting thing about this line is it's astrological imagery. It's use of metaphor, symbolism, symbolism, synectaicolor, or symbolism and imagery. That's interesting. You said blue can be vulnerability in the top of this verse, the armor's falling. Yes, the armor falls off.

Yeah. I know. It's very cohesive writer. Yeah. I also think it's an interesting line because it suggests that there is a cosmological element in their relationship. You know, the idea is, you know, in the great world of space, you know, in the mechanization that is the planets in their spheres, you and I are meant to be together. Yeah, this is a recurring theme in Taylor's work. The stars, the planets, fate.

the astrological signs. Like, because you're always just looking for signs when it's not working. You're like, but we're meant to be, so it has to work, you know? And, I'm not going to say but or however. And she also reminds us of its volatility, right? That fire can be destructive. Yeah. Right.

So there is an and here because, because again, I'm going to say this is a realistic verse as well. Right. So, you know, comment on the verse. You note the use of the continued Sychera, note the parallel placement of diction, notice where line three of verse one and all we know is touch and go, and then line three of verse two is now all we know is don't let go. Yeah, so that's kind of like a progression of the, of the race, the relation, wow, the relationship. It's really good self-aware, intentional writing. Oh, pre-chorus.

So, transitional word. Yes. So you were never a saint. All right. So is everything really perfect in this universe? Never. Religious imagery, a metaphor. A saint is an exemplary person who performed miracles. And whoever the significant other is is not that.

It's also an interesting. device that I've mentioned to you before, it's L-I-T-O-T-E-S. I love L-I-T-E-S. Of course, I'm a classicist. I mean, I was in high school reading Latin for years, and then I got my degree in classicism as an undergraduate. It is very Ciceronian. So, yeah, go get Richard Enos's book on Ciceronian rhetoric. I have it around here.

And, you know, take a look at Cicero when he says, I do not need to tell you what an evil man, you know. Oh, right, right, right. Right. Yeah, but he is telling you. But he is telling you he's an evil man. He said, by saying, I don't have to say he is evil.

He is saying he is evil. So you were never a saint, right? Well, but you're saying he's not a saint. Right. You don't need to say it, but you just did. And it's a line that adds a little realism to the evaluation of the beloved and to the nature of a relationship. And so now I've got my another Shakespearean reference.

One of the most beautiful, if I think almost comically realistic Shakespearean sonnets is sonnet number 130. Okay. So if you'd never read it, go and look it up. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he says, if snow be white, why then her breasts are done?

Dunn is kind of like dark brown. Oh, no. And he says, no, you know, I have never seen. and goddess go when my mistress walks she treads on the ground you know the idea is you would float to seep spear yeah but but in the couple he turns the whole meaning around by telling yeah he says um and yet you know i would never i would i would never belie my love with false compare he says i love her just the way she is yeah i know really turned it around there yeah um In the Volta.

He's in a Volta. Yeah, she's imperfect. But, you know, I mean, think about it realistically. If you expect perfection, if you anticipated Chase would be perfect, how long would that last? Not very. No. No. Perfection leads to disappointment pretty darned for sure.

Yeah. And, you know, I think that's another side of love she wants to examine. Mm-hmm. And I've loved in shades of wrong. That's close to my favorite line. It's so good. Yeah, I think so. Color imagery, you know, use of the word shades, you know, darker colors.

Also casting shade. Uh-huh. Right? Yeah. It's metaphorical comparing love to alterations or modulations of color. Uh-huh. You know, love is complex. It is not idealized in this poem.

Yeah. This album is called Red. Yeah. And there's a song called Red on the album, and it's all about, like, love, I thought love would be burning red, or love is burning red, basically. And so that just kind of pulls into that, like, shades of wrong, like I've loved in the wrong, the wrong shades of red. See, if I had known that this was like the expositionary, the opening song of what was going to be a thematic album, if I had known that from the beginning. So sorry. That's okay.

I don't expect perfection. Oh my gosh. I was never a saint. I know. I know. It's true. Me either. Okay, so I've loved in shades of wrong, not shades of gray or shades of wrong.

Yeah. And what's clever about it, she takes cliche and she does a typical tailor by instead of offering a color shade, she talks about an emotional or moral shade. Yeah. And I'll talk a little bit about the morality of the poem in a minute. Okay. We learn to live with pain. That's a kind of universal. It's basic truism of life, right?

It's read Plato and Aristotle on the nature of universals. And it's also a really nice alliteration. See the L's, the Ws, the Astonus, the I would live and with. The sonic devices, I think, add real unity and beauty to the line, and embedded in that line is this theme of the endurance of love. You know, the truism, that love, that pain

is a feature of human existence, but we learn to live and understand it in the context of capital L love. Uh-huh. Right? Yeah. Because love is, and this is Jerry's favorite line, and I guess that's why you're wearing the pin, mosaic broken hearts.

clearly a metaphor. So it's just so fun. It's beautiful. It's got great visual imagery. It is perfectly symbolic, right? A mosaic is made of all those shattered pieces that can be gathered together to make something beautiful. You know, love is not perfect. Love is not always kind.

Yes, I know I'm talking first Corinthians. That's not what the Bible says. I'm talking first Corinthians here. but you can gather up its stray pieces and out of it you can create beauty right and I think this is the poem's most powerful image it is a line that says the wounds that love gives us can be more meaningful in its whole than individually so yes you know our love is not perfect but our love is not perfect but our love is something that can be drawn together and held up and is still beautiful. It can still be fragmented and sparkling, like a mirror ball.

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Visit Loreal.com to learn more. Am I getting real proud of myself that I actually know some of these ones? It's very fun. Yeah, but it does. It reminds me the same image as Maribol, and it reminds me of Opel. Yeah, absolutely. Opal is quartz that has all those little inclusions, all the friends. fragmentation and it's the fragments that make it beautiful right if it were all fused together

it would just be another piece of quartz right right you know but it's in its fragmented state it's in its wounded damaged state that it acquires its greatest beauty you know and i think that's what she's saying with most mosaic broken hearts um but this love is brave and wilds it's personification Love is like a person. Literally, if you haven't understood by now, she is defining the parameters and nature of love, this line ought to tell you. It is the characterization of an abstract emotion.

It's also very juxtapositional. You notice courage and untamed emotion coexist. Love is brave and wild. Right? So love is this whole list of paradoxical juxtapose. ideas. It is here that you as a reader, you know, I haven't heard the song, but as a reader, I explicitly saw that she is exploring the parameters and definitions of love. Yeah, and that's interesting placement for that, because that is kind of the first place where you're like, oh,

I see what she's doing here. And then that's all we have left is chorus, bridge, and chorus, you know. And again, that chorus is that. Is the tiny, is the little, the little, the little, That's right. The wonderful syntactical economy that she... And I never saw you coming and I'll never, never be the same. Yeah. Chorus repeats. Underscores the continuance, the expectation, the ongoing nature of the discovery of life and love.

Uh-huh. Right? So it just... It keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. There might be a traffic light, but you're going to hit the green light soon. And it's going to be a busy street and you might have to turn, but you're going to keep going. Yeah. Right.

Yes. I just did the chorus, didn't I? I mean, that's all, that's fine. We're good? The bridge. Yes. Oh, man, okay. This is a state of grace.

Is that the first time she said that, huh? It is. I never really realized she doesn't ever say that until, like, it's not in the chorus. Right. Interesting. You know, it's like she gives us all these, I keep saying she, and, you know, in previous stuff I've tried to depersonalize them saying the author. writer. But it becomes hard

a little bit here. But the poet gives us a general reference pronoun this. So what noun an ascendant does this refer to? I think if it were one of my students in a formal essay, I'd have to circle it and say generalism. But I think here she means

this love, this nature, this thing, this creature, this creation, this imperfect mosaic, you know. Yeah, the actual mosaic. Right. Yeah. The emotion. Loves mosaic.

Yes, love's mosaic. Yeah. Is a state of grace. You know, religious allusion here. She's taking a phrase that describes a transcendent relationship with God's divine favor. And she is saying that this is the transcendent nature. of this emotion that we humans have clung to for all of our existence to bind ourselves to another human being and to create society itself. Maybe our greatest invention.

Right. You know, this is that glue. This, she repeats the word, this is the worthwhile fight. This military metaphor, paradoxical, you know, the meaningful, you think of the word, worthwhile being, you know, something that's productive rather than destructive. Uh-huh. But it's this fight that's the worthwhile fight. This fight to find and retain love, to polish love, or maybe to fit the broken pieces of the mosaic together.

Yeah. Yes. Love is a ruthless game compares love to a game, metaphor. It's also personifying. The whole thing is personification. Yeah. It's competitive. It is an unpredictable force.

You know, those pieces don't fit themselves together. It's a game. It's difficult. Unless you play it good and right. Notice again, the introduction of moral language here. Right? So the game imagery is extended, but she combines that with a kind of conditional logic

that bends itself around moral language. Right? The conditional logic, love is ruthless. Unless the condition is, unless you tincture it with this just delicious little touch of morality, of correctitude, of rightness. Do you think that's true? I want to believe it's true. Okay. Yeah.

I want to believe that it would be difficult to write the opposite of this poem. that love is fragmenting and dishonest, right? Yeah. That love is captive and possessive, that love is one-sided. Love requires a deed of ownership. You know, that love is pejorative and, you know, demanding. And that love, I want to believe that love requires skill and tenacity and wisdom.

and forgiveness. Yeah, and like a little goodness. Yeah. And I think if you roll all those up together, the religious word that comes to my mind, especially with forgiveness, is grace. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, yeah. These are the hands of fate. It's personification, it's destiny imagery. And I wrote a little comment. I said that this line perhaps recalls it love, or happenstance also plays a part in the nature of love and in the development of relationships. Yeah, like their twin fire signs. Yeah, I mean, just accidentally.

Sometimes it is just fate. Sometimes it's just pure happenstance that these two fires come together. You know, the literal hands of fate, of course, are the three fates in Greek literature. plotho lechis and atropos Yeah, tip up, tip my tongue. You know, or three fates. And I wrote a side note in here. Manos, the hand of fate, is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.

So if you've never seen Manos, the hands of fate, I don't think she's referring to that. I probably not, yeah. I don't think that's an illusion of that film. It's just in your head, though. It was in my head somewhere. It was made in El Paso. Oh. And it originally showed out in West Texas and kind of disappeared for a while.

And then after a while, started making it up to little art houses and stuff. Of course, yeah. A little cult classic. It is a horrible movie. When is it? What years? It's in the 60s. Okay.

Yeah. I saw it when I was at the University, at the University of Texas. Okay. Yeah. And she says, you're my Achilles heel. Okay. obviously an illusion to Achilles. His mother is supposed to have been worried about him

and went and asked the gods to protect him. And they said, well, if you dip him in the river sticks, he'll be all right. And so she holds him by his heel, dips him in the river, and his heel then becomes this only vulnerable spot. And in the Elliott, of course, he gets, Paris, shoots him in the heel and he will die. Love has power to wound.

Love has power to kill. And yet she says this is the golden age. So I actually did pull my book. This is Hesiod, or Hesiod, depending upon how you like to say it, if you're British or American. This is my translation by Richard Latimore. And so your assignment is to go and read the entire works and days by Hesiod. He wrote a work in which he lays out a nature. of the golden age.

This is an allusion, maybe the most famous is from the theogony in which he describes the perfect existence of humanity. Okay. So you have the golden age and then the silver age, bronze age, heroic age, and then the Iron Age. We're currently living in the Iron Age, obviously. The Golden Age suggests a rare moment of harmony. flourishing. This rare moment would love

it flourishes. Of something good and right and real. So again, we've got our moral language, re-infused. This is also here's your rhetorical word for the day. Okay. It's a tricolon.

A tricolon is a three-part phrase. Okay, yeah. Right. Good and right and real. It's like Vinny, vidi, Vichy. Yeah. So I came, I saw, I conquered. So this is a tricolin.

Okay. Yeah, note the anaphra that this is, this is creating rhythm, emphasis structure. And I think most of all it creates intensity. You know, this is love, this is love, this is it. Yeah, with the repetition, yeah. And notice that in the poem as a whole, although we don't have a lot of end rhyme, when we get to the bridge, we've got end rhyme. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So we have grace and game and fate and age and fight and right and eel and real. Yeah. So we have this kind of end run that sort of binds and all. It's like she's gathering up all these different parts of the mosaic and putting it together herself. And then we have the chorus, which is really kind of repetition of everything else. And I never saw you coming and I'll never be the same. and I never saw you coming and I'll never so you're never a saint

and I've loved in shades of wrong be the same we learn to live with the pain mosaic broken hearts but this love is brave and wild I like when she does that when she pulls different parts of the song and then kind of in the outro she

puts them together yeah well and I mean you kind of and so you know I wrote it acts as sort of a coda a recapitulation of major ideas and themes You know, her major ideas is love doesn't require you to be a saint. You know, love can be in shades of right and wrong. Love can bring us pain.

Love can be a mosaic of broken elements. Love can be brave. Love can be wild. So, you know, she's giving us these little rapid statements, but she's also accumulating, gathering all those things up that makes it physically, I mean, I think, again, you qualify this as concrete poetry. Agreed. Because this looks like a mosaic of pieces of the rest of the poet.

It does, yeah. It's like a pest ditch of previous elements. Yeah. But she is now glued all together. And so... That's like... Yeah, I love this. That's so good.

So when she goes out, she says, this is the state of grace. This is the worthwhile fight. Love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right. So we've identified our symbols, our metaphors, our... Met of some all the stuff. So let's reassess. Yes. I wrote, I tried to gather them all up.

Armor equals emotional defenses. A cannonball is a sudden impact of love. A state of grace is the spiritual transformation brought about by love or by the prospect of love. The fact that it's a game means it is romantic risk. It's a mosaic. So it's healing after heartbreak. It's gathering the pieces together. It's fire signs with passion.

And compassionate and compassionate compatibility is Achilles heel with vulnerability. It is a golden age of peak emotional fulfillment. That's what love is. I know. I just think this has got it. You know, if you wanted to write about patterns of imagery in the poem, it is so easy. Look at the religious imagery, saints, grace, moral language, like, right, wrong, redemption imagery, astrological imagery.

The purpose is to elevate the relationship, the nature of love above the mundane, above ordinary romance, right? Love isn't just ordinary life, it is something else. It is something more akin to God or the gods than to this mundane life. Or look at the pattern of military imagery, cannonball, armor, fight, love requires courage,

courage, sacrifice, daring, pain. Or look at the classical references. Achilles, fate, golden age, astrology. These help connect love to the vulnerability required that has extended throughout all time, right? It's like ancient and heroic narratives. All of these are about love. So my love is list?

Yes, yes. Love is a battlefield, spiritually transcendent, a force of nature, a surprise, a source of renewal, transformational, unsafe, pain, risk, fate, pieces glued together. So, our author has suggested that love emerges out of a crowd. go back to the beginning of the poem. It emerges out of a crowd for two people. Love is not safe. Love is not guaranteed. But it's worthwhile.

It's transformative. It's transcendent. It has the possibility of generating something profoundly real, right? She's very realistic. And that's what makes pursuing love worthwhile. And the value of the pursuit doesn't rest in its permanence or in its perfection, the value of the pursuit lies in the potential to transform those who experience love. Which kind of is Taylor's story.

She kept trying. She never gave up. She kept trying because she knew it was worthwhile and something. Yeah, but is he the right one? Don't you start. Okay. I have just dropped the mic on this one because it is good stuff. Yeah, I'm so excited for you to hear it.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, I feel like it's got this driving bum, bum, bum, bum. I should say that there is a on red, there is also, like, as a bonus track, there is a like acoustic version of State of Grace. And I sort of hate it. Oh, really? Yeah, because, and normally I like those. Like, I like when it's just like Taylor in a piano or Taylor in a guitar or whatever. but this song I think needs that that driving beat that you've guessed is there and it just does not hit the same for me the acoustic version let me hear it okay we are going to listen to

the original one not Taylor's version though I do think Taylor's version is also very good but you just need to get the full when you start talking like this I always think it's kind of fun we're going to listen to the they always ask but the other one but not the other one they always ask And then there's the Ares Tour and the long puddle. Long bonnet. Yeah. Okay, so we're just going to listen to original State of Grace, not acoustic, not Taylor's version. And we'll be right back.

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Okay. What do you think? All right. Boy. Yeah, that's gravy all over the place, people. That's an actual poetic, analytic term. Yeah, now it is. Yeah, now.

Okay, ready to grade? Yeah, I had my grade made up last night. Okay, don't let me slow you down. Sorry, I am slowing you down. I got to get there. Okay, lyrical strength. 100. Oh, my gosh, 100.

Narrative instruction. 100. Oh, my gosh. Come on, faster. Production and atmosphere. Oh, the music, it was good. I mean, you know, the poppy version was good. I kind of like the acoustic.

Okay, okay. Yeah, 94. Okay. Um, lore and literary references. There's 102. What? Yeah, 102. We're giving an extra bonus time for, for mentioning the works and days and Achilles heel and.

Okay. And emotional impact. Um, uh, you know, it's funny because last week I said, oh, I've read this poem, um, you know, a lot of different time. And, and you pointed out that it tends to be written from the, um, from the adolescent females point of view. Uh-huh. And so it didn't hit me as much. And so I'm just going to eat my own words and say, you know, you ever read a million love poems.

And, but this is nice. Yeah. You know, emotional impact. Yeah, I mean, I would say 98. Oh, my goodness. That gives us a 98.8. See, I don't know if that's high enough. Which one was low?

The production in August year. Oh, I think it's a 96. There we go. That's it. Is that a 99? Yes, 99. point two. We could have just rounded up on the 98.8.

We might do that. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so just indulge me for a second. If we go up to Alt-2-L, which we have two different grades for that because you graded all-too-L and All-2-L-10-minute version separately, All-2-L original is a 92.4, but L-2-10 was also a 99. Yes. And State of Grace is now a 99.

I'm going to make Uncle Jerry into a red girlie. Yeah, maybe so. I will say that Peter is still my favorite song. Of course, yes, it's a perfect song. It really is. It's my favorite as a poem. It's my favorite music as a song. Agreed, yeah.

I go in there and play it on my piano. But this really hit me. Good. Yeah, this was good. Okay. This has been very fun. I feel like I said nothing because I was just sitting here like this. My cheeks kind of hurt because I was just.

smiling the whole time you were talking. No, not at all. I was really enjoying it. I'm sure they were too. I think they would like me to shut up a little more often so you can speak. You're the one who opened the gate on this little journey. I know, but that was like really delightful because this was unexpected for me from State of Grace. But I'm glad it hits you right where it's supposed to hit you.

Yeah, it is good stuff. And I swear I think we could go back over it again and spend another hour picking apart some of the things. I mean, you just have to look at her sonic devices and look at the alliteration and assonance and repattern the imagery and things like that. It would be lots. There is lots here. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. 99 for state of grace. This was really fun. Uncle Jerry loves red. Who knew? There you go. Okay.

Thank you for being here. We'll be back next week. We actually, the next two weeks are going to be like the lead up and the, um, celebration of our one-year anniversary. Wow. So we have a song coming next week that is the only song Uncle Jerry knew was Taylor Swift before we started this. All right.

And then we have one that I think he's going to love for our one-year anniversary. So come back the next few weeks and keep up to date on social, Dr. Uncle Jerry, Angela Wyatt McDow, the pod is at Swifty and Scholar Pod. and we will see you next week. Keep on loving. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Bye.