31 October 2016 ¦ Bradley Copper
Virgil’s Aeneid was an epic poem composed from 29-19 BC. It describes the mythological journey of Trojan hero Aeneas and his founding of Rome, and was immediately placed at the centre of education in the early Roman Empire. Hamilton: An American Musical, a show about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and the American Revolution (1765-83), has with similar speed entered classrooms across the United States in the year since its Broadway debut. In his poem, Virgil lauds Emperor Augustus, to whom he performed parts of it; Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man behind Hamilton, sang an early version of its first song at a White House Poetry Jam in 2009. In fact, it’s difficult to find higher praise for the musical than from the White House: recently Michelle Obama called it “a musical about the miracle that is America” (70th). Rarely do literary works get so warm an imperial reception, so what may we make of this anecdotal connection between Hamilton and the classical epic?