There’s a book called “The Anxiety of Influence” by Harold Bloom about how poets influence one another.
Bloom’s main argument was that the influence of past poets creates a sense of anxiety and pressure in living poets, which threatens their particular vision. For Bloom, influence is somewhat like a weight that an artist has to overcome.
Why am I talking about a 43-year-old book on poetry in a column about one of contemporary theater’s greatest voices? I bring up Bloom’s thesis because the career of Lin-Manuel Miranda proves that his argument is not necessarily true for most artists.
Miranda uses his influences in a way to create something that is much more than the sum of its parts.
For example, take his relationship with “Sweeney Todd.” Miranda acknowledges that the prologue of that musical influenced the opening number of “Hamilton” because the supporting characters set the stage for the protagonist’s arrival. He also noted in an interview with Rembert Browne that studying the structure of “Sweeney Todd” was useful for creating “Hamilton.”
But Miranda didn’t just set out to replicate what he liked from “Sweeney Todd.” Instead, he allowed its influence to guide what he wanted to do in “Hamilton.” It might have given him some ideas for what he wanted to accomplish, but what he did with those ideas was truly original.
One of the essential purchases for any “Hamilton” fan is “Hamilton: The Revolution.” Miranda annotates his musical’s libretto, and his annotations reveal all of the different ways the media he loves influenced his most celebrated work.
Reading these annotations about the various references in “Hamilton” is like seeing how Miranda’s brain processes the culture that he loves and turns it into a part of his work.
Sometimes the cultural reference is obvious, like how the Notorious B.I.G. song “Ten Crack Commandments” influenced the “Hamilton” number “Ten Duel Commandments.”
Others are more subtle, such as how the repetition of the word “unless” is a reference to the podcast “My Brother, My Brother and Me.”
Miranda even refers to one of Hamilton’s lines in “Your Obedient Servant” as his “‘Parks and Recreation’ homage,” showing that there is not a single type of media that does not feed his creative process.
But his use of these references is never to show off the breadth of his knowledge or to give the audience a cute wink. Instead, they’re used because they help Miranda tell his stories.
They provide signposts for his audience as they navigate the terrain of his shows. The co-author of “Hamilton: The Revolution,” Jeremy McCarter, convincingly argues that Miranda’s references to rappers like Biggie Smalls help collapse the distance between our time and the 18th century.
Miranda’s way of working shows that influence from other artists does not have to be an anxiety. It can be a joy to use the work that has come before you to tell a story in an original way.
Hip-hop has existed for decades, and the Founding Fathers died centuries ago, but Miranda’s joining of the two has made people look at both of them in new lights.
Just as other artists have influenced Miranda, so too will Miranda influence other artists. It is inevitable that current and future writers will quote his work. One can hope that like Miranda, they will see the work they love not as intimidating statues but as doors to new worlds.
jpastern@indiana.edu | @jessepasternack
