Whitney's Warrior: Added Upon in Early Home Literature

For over fifty years the gospel has been preached to the poor and lowly. It will yet go to the high and mighty, even to kings and nobles, and penetrate and climb to places hitherto deemed inaccessible. Our literature will help to take it there; for this, like all else with which we have to do, must be made subservient to the building up of Zion. 

-Orson F. Whitney.

Whitney makes no mistake. The "Home Literature" he requests the saints to make separates itself from Milton and Shakespeare and Virgil and Homer because it has the gospel. It will not harm the essence of the literature, it will strengthen it.

Nephi Anderson takes this and runs. I found it interesting that he took such a stark, scriptural approach in the first part and projects that high-religious characters into the ones (who are extremely similar to Anderson's contemporary's) in part 2. This brings the religious directly into the reader's every day life in an engaging way. Anderson, although he has a story to tell, gives a staunch religious prelude that the reader simply can't forget. I mean, you can just imagine the messenger sending the Flinders family -- I mean, Delsa and Homan down the tube.

One afterthought: I did notice that Anderson's Norwegian bit summons the vision of Milton's Adam and Eve, with Signe running away from Hr. Horbert and then looking at her reflection in the pool. And of course Milton was referencing Apollo and Daphne, and Echo and Narcissus. Does this throw a wrench in Whitney's warning against mimicking the classics, or does it show an extra layer of depth? 

Home Literature

In Orson Whitney's essay on Home Literature, he emphasizes two main points: "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith." -- D&C 88:118

and

"Truth is truth, wher'er 'tis found,
On Christian or on heathen ground,"

Both Oroson’s ideas invite the rising generation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to contemplate how they are writing and encourage them to flood the literary world with "moralistic and faith-promoting stories." This is precisely what Nephi Anderson does in his fictional story Added Upon. I would argue, however, that the Part One of Anderson's story is more based in LDS theology and addresses an LDS audience more so than the "mortal realm" we read about in Part two. In fact, the story that Nephi tells in Part One is closely approximated with the scriptures, and thus 'quot[es] out of the best books" as Whitney encourages. Additionally, at one point, when the spirits are ready to come down to "Earth," the angel who is sending them down advises them that it will be "by the power of your spiritual insight and moral strength you will be able to exert a correcting influence over your brothers and sisters in the flesh, and especially over those of your kin." To me this is echoing the Home Literature theme of didacticism in literature.

Home Literature Aspects in Added Upon

When it comes to Home Literature, Orson Whitney talked about how literature was for learning, and some of what fell under the “best books” also included history, poetry, philosophy, etc. Literature must also be original and diverse, and a person should also feel what they write.

Something that Nephi Anderson did in Added Upon was include substantial amounts of poetry (such as Wordsworth). If, for some reason, you stumbled upon the book as a non-member, you would be able to see a familiar names within the poetry. The book was published in 1898, so it was after the early saints had struggled with a lot of moving from place to place, and were in Utah (however, they were still moving around after that), so that could have influenced Anderson’s writing and “feeling of what he wrote.” He also began the book with the story of the premortal existence, a story, as members of The Church, we are familiar with. People of other Christian faiths would also be able to recognize the event taking place, as the widely-known characters are either presented by name (ex. Lucifer), or easy to pick up on (ex. Father). He kept with the basic storyline, but included characters of his own to make the story more original.