This postJust went to a BYU-AML lecture by Gideon Burton on the Book of Mormon as literature. Rather than recap the whole thing, I’ll just mention the points that stuck out to me.
First, I loved the Kenneth Burke quote: “Literature is equipment for living.” That really nails it. I don’t know why I constantly feel the need to affirm literature’s importance — perhaps it has something to do with our modern age’s emphasis on business and medicine and law as the “real” professions, with the humanities somehow being more ethereal and not-quite-with-it — but regardless, I absolutely love this quote.
Second, Dr. Burton made the point that the essential, core doctrine of the gospel could easily be given in a few pages; why, then, do we have 500-odd pages in the Book of Mormon? The answer (one of the answers, I suppose) is that literature is very, very good at teaching things in ways that stick. Stories speak to us in ways that lists of doctrine never can. (That doesn’t mean that doctrine is useless, I might add.) The Savior often taught in parables. We remember stories far more easily than we remember facts. And since the Book of Mormon is at heart a narrative, it becomes a part of us in ways that a doctrinal exposition could only dream of.
Third, literary form is important. Poetry set in prose form doesn’t have the same effect. Likewise, prose takes on different qualities when set as poetry. Dr. Burton showed us Jacob 7:26 as a poem, and it really was a different experience. Here he also talked about the re-chaptering and versification of the Book of Mormon text in 1851 by Orson Pratt, mentioning Grant Hardy’s reader’s edition. Afterwards Katherine kindly brought up my own reader’s edition, Project Cumorah. It’s been a while since I’d given it much thought, but now that it’s back in the forefront of my consciousness, I’m thinking about finally making a hardcover edition.
I’m also oh-so-tempted to set various parts of the text as poetry (even those that weren’t originally poetry). Combine that with graphic design and you get visual poems. Mmm… :) We’ll see what comes of this. The graphic novel editions of the Book of Mormon were pretty cool, I might add. I’m really rather tempted to start working on Book of Mormon scenes in 3D with Blender…
