James is the 17-year-old boy at the center of Taylor Swift’s “august” love-triangle story. The song is told from the viewpoint of a young woman who has a brief summer romance with James, even though he is already connected to Betty.
The story continues across three Folklore songs. “august” presents the unnamed girl’s perspective, “betty” presents James’s perspective, and “cardigan” presents Betty’s perspective. Swift created the characters as fictional narrative figures rather than direct autobiographical portraits.
The song’s narrator is sometimes informally called Augusta or Augustine, but Swift did not give her a definitive name in the lyrics. That is why James is the safer canonical character answer. By the end of the story, James and Betty reunite, while the “august” narrator is left remembering a relationship that was meaningful to her but never truly belonged to her.