SAMANTHA BIEL
In a post entitled “How Eloquence Made History Class Cool Again” in the blog Rhetoric, Media and the Civic Life, Samantha Biel notes that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance at the White House in 2009 was almost word-for-word from the opening song “Alexander Hamilton” in Hamilton:
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, and a Scotsman,
Dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in
The Caribbean by providence impoverished, in squalor,
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
. . .
Then a hurricane came, and devastation reigned
Our man saw his future drip, dripping down the drain
Put a pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain
And he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain
Well, the word got around, they said, this kid is insane, man
Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland
Get your education, don’t forget from whence you came and
The world is gonna know your name, what’s your name, man?
Alexander Hamilton
(September 2016)
