What does Travis Kelce see in Taylor Swift? A woman defined by her mighty achievements | Opinion

“I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart — and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing — really seeing you?” — Robert Browning’s first letter to Elizabeth Barrett

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee?” (Sonnet 43)

“I’ve seen you rock the stage at Arrowhead. You might have to come see me rock the stage at Arrowhead and see which one’s a little more lit.” — Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce speaking about Taylor Swift on “The Pat McAfee Show”

Robert Browning, an up-and-coming poet at the time, went to see Elizabeth Barrett, or tried to, but was turned away. Travis Kelce has said he tried to meet Taylor Swift, and he, too, was unsuccessful in his first attempt.

Neither admirer was deterred. Both tried something else: They sent messages that began by emphasizing the achievement of their object of desire.

Kelce went to see Swift at her recent Kansas City concert, as he said, and what he says he saw was her rocking performance. Browning knew Barrett’s books, and wanted to meet the author. He extolled her poetry, then her, connecting the two in his expressed interest.

Kelce showed up, as might be said now. The space, the arena he name-checks, is a very familiar one to him. Though he knows it better than she does, she is even better known than he is. The space as filled by Swift was unlike any he would have known there until then: predominantly girls and mothers, fewer fathers and sons, frocks and frills, not T-shirts and jeans. And what did he bring as an entrée, an initial offering? A friendship bracelet, a signifier of her in a place more often identified with beers and banners.

Browning’s love letter would be published and quoted over and over. Kelce would publish his note himself, and it would be quoted repeatedly, too.

Barrett would marry Browning against her father’s wishes. She was 38 and Browning 32 when he sent the letter in winter. They would finally meet mid-spring. They would secretly marry two years later, and two years after that, she would bear his child. The next year, she would publish her sonnet, “How Do I Love Thee?”

It was a different era. Time is more compressed now.

Compared to the traditional suitor, Travis Kelce looks a lot more clever and in tune with the way a certain kind of accomplished woman like Taylor Swift wants to be appreciated — for what she does, which is a large part of who she is.

It worked for Robert Browning, who made an unlikely marriage and became a star, too. Before the first football was ever thrown in America, Elizabeth Barrett Browning would be buried, her husband editing her last poems.

Sandy Feinstein is a professor of English at Penn State Berks in Reading, Pennsylvania, and a former teacher in Winfield, Kansas.