Valerie Estelle Frankel

The English Teacher's Guide to the Hamilton Musical Valerie Estelle Frankel

The high school or college English class offers a long list of technical terms: Symbolism, Irony, Metafiction, Allegory, Metaphor... With such a barrage, it can be tough to sort them all out. Yet here's the list, from Absurdity to Zeugma, all defined through the clever wordplay of Hamilton. In fact, musicals use all the rhythm and rhyme patterns of history's top poets, and the literary skill of crafting characters and straddling genre. Further, the rap battles reveal a list of logical fallacies and top argumentation strategies that could empower lawyers or speech writers at the level of this famed Founding Father. Going deeper, the book lists the themes, motifs, allusions, and so on of the show, revealing sneaky foreshadowing and subtle symbols. For die-hard fans of the show, or those mastering rhetorical terms, logic, and the power of words, it's a delightful geek guide.