the literary book of mormon
TRANSCRIPT
The Literary Book of Mormon
Dr. Gideon BurtonBrigham Young University
Presentation to the Association for Mormon Letters
BYU Student ChapterFebruary 15, 2007
Reasons for Reading the Book of Mormon as Literature
• Provides proof of the historicity of the book
It’s Egyptian!
“The first three verses of 1 Nephi…are a typical colophon, a literary device that is highly characteristic of Egyptian compositions, such as in the Bremer-Rhind Papyrus. Nephi gives first his name, than the merits of his parents with special attention to the learning of his father and an avowal that the record is true, and “I make it with mine own hand.” Egyptian literary writings regularly close with the formula iw-f-pw “thus it is” as does Nephi 11” –Franklin S. Harris
It’s Hebrew!
“The second type [of Hebrew literary forms found in the Book of Mormon] is antithetical parallelism in which the thought of the first line is emphasized, or confirmed by a contrasted thought expressed in the second line:
To be carnally minded is death,And to be spiritually-minded is life eternal”
--Franklin S. Harris
It’s Middle Eastern!
Lehi’s desert poems in 1 Nephi 2:9-10 are a literary form Hugh Nibley as identified as an Arabic quasida. –adapted from Richard Dilworth Rust and Donald Perry, “Book of Mormon as Literature”
Reasons for Reading the Book of Mormon as Literature
• Provides proof of its historicity
• Literature is sophisticated, so if our scripture is impressive, then so are we Mormons
• Better appreciate the book’s creation
• Better understand its doctrines
• Better feel its effects
Literary Activities
• Record Keeping• Drafting• Revising / Correcting• Translating• Redacting• Editing• Publishing• Transmitting
Dramatic
LiteraryOratorical
Overlapping Fields of Discourse
Poetical Linguistic
Narrative Genres
Journal / Diary
Family histories
Political histories
Annals of military campaigns
Epic
Parable / Allegory
Detective story
Literary Elements
• Setting• Plot (including flashbacks / foreshadowing)• Characters / Characterization• Dialogue• Figurative Language• Imagery• Symbolism• Dramatization • Narrator and Narrative commentary• Allusions
Linguistic Elements(Diction—level of words and phrases)
• Word pairs (“great and terrible” “signs and wonders”)
• Merisms (“nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples”)
• Idioms (“make bare his arm”; “ends of the earth”)• Aphorisms (“For it must needs be, that there is
an opposition in all things”)• Antithetical pairings (“Jew and Gentile”; “choose
life or death”; “mortality raised to immortality”; “to act for themselves and not to be acted upon”)
Figurative Language
Schemes• Anadiplosis • Parallelism• Antithesis• Climax• Parenthesis• Tmesis• Apposition• Repetition
Tropes• Metaphors• Similes• Apostrophe • Personification • Hyperbole • Exergasia • Polysyndeton
Poetical Genres
Psalm
Lamentation
Lyric poetry
Literary Lamentations
Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.
–from Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”
Literary Lamentations
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
–from The Tempest, by Shakespeare
Literary Lamentations
I conclude this record....by saying thatthe time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days.
–Jacob from the Book of Mormon (Jacob 7:26)
Rhetorical genres
SpeechesSermons Political OratoryMilitary Addresses
DebatesInterviews
Rhetorical Elements
Rhetorical ModesExposition
Narration
Description
Types of Discourse
Direct / Indirect
Reported Narratives
Questions
Onomastics(Naming)
• Multiple Names of Christ: 60 names
• New names: Irreantum, curelom, deseret, urim & thummim, rameumptom, liahona
• Conventions of naming places and people
Literary Themes and Motifs
• Obey and prosper (conceptual motif)• Wars and contentions• Pride• Land of Promise• Fleeing• Naming• Preserving• Remembering• Visitations of angels (plot motif)• Sword / word • Imagistic motifs
The Functions of Form
Being aware of formal features of a sacred text attunes one to the various functions and effects of those forms that condition the understanding and appreciation of the text.
Any difference?The Red Wheelbarrow
so much dependsupon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rainwater
beside the whitechickens.
--William Carlos Williams
The Red Wheelbarrow
So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.
--William Carlos Williams
What effects from the forms?
• Chaptering?
• Paragraphing?
• Versification?• Layout?
Function of Layout: Chiasmus
A B
B A
Book of Mormon manuscript
Book of Mormon1830 (1st)
edition
Special Attention through Verses
The Psalm of Nephi (1)
The Psalm of Nephi (1)
The Psalm of Nephi (2)
Book of Mormon1980 Church Edition
1830 Book of Mormon
Book of MormonGolden Plates
Book of MormonManuscript of English Translation
Book of MormonA Reader’s Edition, ed. Grant Hardy
(University of Illinois, 2003)
Illustrated Book of Mormon
Book of MormonDigital Audio Edition
Book of MormonFamily Study Edition
The Book of MormonNon-English Translations
Book of Mormon Scholarly Edition
Golden Plates Graphic Novel edition
The Literary Book of Mormon
Dr. Gideon BurtonBrigham Young University
Presentation to the Association for Mormon Letters
BYU Student ChapterFebruary 15, 2007