Friday, December 8, 2017

Burn

"Burn", from the Hamilton soundtrack by Lin Manuel Miranda is sung by Eliza Schuyler-Hamilton after she finds out that her husband, Alexander Hamilton, had an affair with another married woman. Alexander, in order to keep his political career intact, writes the Reynolds Pamphlets, detailing his exploits with his mistress, and releases them to the public. Eliza reads the letters, and, unable to handle her grief and anger, burns both her copy of the Reynolds Pamphlets as well as the love letters Alexander wrote her before they were married, hence the name of the song- "Burn".
Obviously, the speaker is Eliza, the audience Alexander (as shown through her use of "you," addressing her husband). The meaning of the song is that Alexander made Eliza's world burn both in their love for each other, and with her hatred of him.
In the third stanza, she recalls the beginning.
"You and your words flooded my senses
Your sentences left me defenseless
You built me palaces out of paragraphs
You built cathedrals"
Her language builds a world with him in it, uses imagery and metaphor to illustrate the world he made her, her paradise, her everything. Then she switches to analyzing the new letters he published.
"You and your words obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you
You, you, you"
The use of repetition throughout the entire song of "you" is particularly striking because it emphasizes that in his act of self-preservation, in thinking about only himself, his actions had casualties. The final line contributes to the meaning because it subtly summarizes Eliza's grief and hatred in simple words.
"I hope that you burn"

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