[For each
of the last
few holiday seasons, I’ve made some
requests to the AmericanStudies
Elves. This year, I thought I’d highlight some amazing American stories that
are ripe for telling in historical fiction films, novels, TV shows, you name
it. Share the stories you’d like to see told, or any other wishes for the AS
Elves, ahead of a wish-full crowd-sourced weekend post!]
On the
(con-)Founding Father who’s enjoying a bit of a comeback, but still needs more.
As reflected by
the fact that he sings much of the opening, title song of Lin-Manuel
Miranda’s musical Hamilton (2015),
Aaron Burr plays an integral role in this theatrical smash hit that’s bringing
all sorts of new attention to the Revolutionary era and many of its focal
figures. Yet because Burr was (as he puts it in that song) “the damn fool that
shot him,” in the most famous
duel in American history, any text focused on Hamilton is of course going
to portray Burr first and foremost as an antagonist, and while Miranda’s musical
does some justice to Burr’s complexities and depths (particularly his
relationships with two key women, his wartime
lover Theodosia Prevost and his talented daughter
Theodosia Burr Alston) when it focuses on him, he consistently takes a back
seat to Hamilton and does ultimately play that antagonist’s role in the story.
No offense to
Hamilton, whose own life and story are as compelling as Miranda makes them, but
when it comes to complex and interesting Founders, no one has Aaron Burr beat. Gore
Vidal knew it, and his historical
novel Burr (1973) is for my money not only the best historical novel of the
Revolutionary era, but one of the greatest American historical novels. That’s
partly because Aaron Burr’s
life story is ridiculously full of dramatic incident, so much so that the
duel with Hamilton is probably only the fourth or fifth most historic and
interesting moment. And it’s partly because his story opens up so many complex
and forgotten Revolutionary and Early Republic moments and issues, from the
Revolution’s 1775
Quebec campaign to the hugely contested
1800 presidential election to the thin, thin line (if one exists at all)
between Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and Burr’s mysterious,
potentially traitorous plans for an empire in the West. And oh yeah, Burr
lived for another three decades after that treason trial, becoming a pivotal
figure in the rise
of New York as a major American city, as well as the political careers of Andrew
Jackson and Martin
Van Buren.
Seriously,
AmericanStudies Elves, let’s make this happen!
Last wishing
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other wishes you’d share?
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