The Basics:
Taylor Swift is bored at a social event. She makes eye contact with a hottie, who makes his way across the room to talk to her. At home later that night, Swift cannot sleep – she lies awake wondering if she will see him again and praying that he is not in love with someone else.
Literary Device: Pragmatographia
Pragmatographia is a literary device in which a poet provides a vivid description of an event. In the first verse of Enchanted, Taylor Swift provides a detailed description of a moment when she became “wonderstruck” – the moment she met and had a too-brief conversation with her new love interest.
Swift begins the song by describing a painfully mundane event. The atmosphere is uninspiring: “there I was again tonight… same old tired, lonely place.” Swift’s behavior reflects her ennui: “Forcing laughter, faking smiles” and she projects it onto the other guests; “walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy.” Swift’s perception of her evening changes in an instant when she makes eye contact with a sexy dude. Everything Swift described previously “vanished when I saw your face” and the environment instead became “enchanting.” At this point, Swift no longer inhabits the “same old tired, lonely place” but instead a night that is “sparkling” and “flawless.”
Analysis:
Taylor Swift deploys pragmatographia in the first verse to catch the listener up and provide the context for her current situation. It is now 2 AM – “The lingering question kept me up / 2 AM, who do you love?” Swift is “pacing back and forth” reflecting on the evening and talking to a man who is not present. She repeats “I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew” four times. She also repeatedly sighs “please don’t be in love with someone else” and “please don’t have somebody waiting on you” with increasing intensity.
Like the younger Swift of You Belong With Me, the Swift of Enchanted does not effectively communicate with her love interest. Swift recalls “the words [she] held back” and sings them to her empty bedroom instead. Even in her imagined dialogue, Swift leaves much unsaid. “All I can say is, it was enchanting to meet you” leaves the listener to fill in the blanks and wonder what, exactly, she cannot say.
Looking back, their initial interaction was full of indirect communication and Swift inferred a lot from very little. The inferences begin when she first sees him. From across the room, his “eyes whispered ‘have we met?’” Not only can a whisper not be heard from across a room, but eyes cannot whisper. Swift perceives words where there were none. From there, Swift describes their conversation as “playful” and full of “quick remarks.” It is fun – a game of wits – rather than a sincere exchange of feelings. Swift also compares their conversation to “passing notes in secrecy,” depicting a scenario in which it is challenging to communicate. Swift read a lot into eye contact and a quick conversation – in her mind, she decoded the secret message embedded in a light-hearted social interaction. Now, Swift lies awake at night wondering if her conversation partner also understood the words she did not say.
Never heard of Pragmatographia, thanks!