Marcus Cain’s Literary Journal Experiment

Here’s a paragraph from my own journal, followed by variations.

September 30, 2019

Today was the start of week 5 for the fall semester. It’s a little rough since my days continue to start at 6am and end around 9:45pm. Throughout the day there are several hills I try to get over throughout the day and the most difficult one today was classes. I kept falling asleep. Oops. It’s probably because I forgot to make lunch – running a little low on energy. I woke up a little while coaching.

Variations:

1.    Chronological Accounts (No Emotions)

-      Today I woke up skipped my workout at the gym because had too much homework for the day before my classes started. I fell asleep in class a lot. That evening I had a great time coaching.

2.    Bullet points (Informal)

-      Start of week 5, fall semester

-      The length of my day

-      Several hills like classes

-      Fell asleep

-      Didn’t make lunch

-      Coaching

3.    Reflection on Greatest Emotions (Singular Thought)

-      The 5^thweek of the semester is kind of like the rest, and I beginning to get more tired even though I woke up by the end of the day. 

4.    Descriptive Positivity (Turn Around Event)

-      “Can we blast Taylor Swift and have a dance party?” My kids that I coach on Mondays at 7pm are now my dance party crew. They constantly are high energy and honestly believe that listening to Taylor Swift on full blast gives them powers to practice harder. I have to say, I believe it works. They are constantly dancing around to each station but focus when it is necessary. It’s a whole lot of fun that really gives me energy to get through the last few hours of a 16-hour day.

5.    Reflective Questions (Rhetorical)

-      Is it possible to survive 16-hour days that are on a constant cycle throughout the semester? Why do my days feel like a constant roller coaster, only the hills are high and lows of physical energy? Is falling asleep in class the new study habit I’ve mastered? Is a peanut butter jelly my only source of energy throughout the day? What if I coached all day; would keep me awake longer that sitting in classes? 

Reflection: I like the 4^thvariation because it focuses on the positive of the day rather than the negative. What happens throughout your day is usually forgotten if it is negative, so it is important to write down and remember the positive moments. However, I do like variation 2 because it helps me remember what happened that day for reference. I think using alternate approaches is a great way to understand your life through different lenses. There are different ways we can approach life and even more so there are different approaches we can write about life. Experimenting with different variations is a fun way to look at your day in a new way. 

Nephi Anderson's Added Upon - Home Literature

Nephi Anderson's novel is an interesting example of Home Literature. The plot is confused, and probably even more confusing to someone who is not acquainted with LDS Christian literature and doctrine. He quotes from random scriptures, and fails to pull together the coherence necessary. And yet, he is achieving at some level Orson Whitney's desire for a home literature. Whitney says, "In God's name and by his help we will build up a literature whose top shall touch heaven, though its foundations may now be low in earth." His goal for home literature is brilliance and spirituality.

Nephi Anderson approaches the epic tradition in a way similar to Milton. His is a novel epic, however, rather than a poem. He begins by describing the lives of spirits in the presence of God before their life on Earth, in the epic Miltonian tradition of the war in heaven, but with a very LDS twist. He pulls in allusions to Wordsworth, Isaiah, Amos, and many others. These would most certainly have been considered the "best books" by Whitney, and while modernly Anderson's story seems rather convoluted, for his context and the amount of doctrine he is using he does quite well. Prevalent within the text is an assumption that the reader is already familiar with the LDS doctrine of Lucifer's fall, Christ's volunteering, and the importance of Adam's and Eve's choice to eat the fruit in Eden.

Added Upon and Home Literature

From the remarks given by Orson Whitney, there is a strong emphasis about providing powerful literature that remains pure. Whitney focused a lot on the aspects of creating literature that was uplifting yet remained outside of the LDS cannon. It seems that we get sucked into focusing on the same cannon such as the Bible and the Book of Mormon because they are “pure”, however, there can be many other forms of literature that are written “by the spirit”. As directed, we should be seeking out all that is good, and I believe this includes literature of all types.

I believe Nephi Anderson does a great job in applying Whitney’s words to his literature. Added Uponprovides unique insights such as including very “LDS” doctrine such as the Plan of Salvation and the role of families. Even though these topics are talked about within many different religions, Anderson places emphasis on specific characters and characteristics that help the story provide a new, yet familiar, understanding of the pre-post mortal life. I believe he does a great job on making the story simple and pure, uplifting and direct with topics associated primarily in LDS culture. Though this story is pure, I could see why theology would become a little fuzzy within the Mormon culture and what we believe – good literature like this is easily mistaken for doctrine. 

Nephi Anderson’s Added Upon: An Example of Home Literature

Orson Whitney urged Latter-day Saints to produce a “pure and powerful literature” (paragraph 4). He reminded them that this home literature would be “for God’s glory, not man’s. . . . If the words you speak are not as red-hot embers from the flaming forge of a sincere and earnest soul, they will never set on fire the souls of your hearers” (11).
     These words were a call to action for Nephi Anderson, who wrote Added Upon. The unique Mormon theology that almost overwhelms the book is reminiscent of Whitney’s instruction to produce literature that was diverse and uniquely Mormon, using the Holy Ghost as its muse rather than the Greek and Roman so-called muses of ancient literature. The opening line of the novel immediately proclaims that we’re sons and daughters of God. The book then jumps right in to the story of Jesus and Lucifer each offering themselves up as the Savior and the resulting war in heaven. Anderson’s description of people in the premortal life (“No two were alike, yet all bore an impress of the Creator, and each had an individual beauty of his own”) foreshadows the words in “Family: A Proclamation to the World” that state that we were all made in God’s image. With little explanation, the book uses theological terms obscure to those outside the Latter-day Saint faith such as “agency” and “second estate.”
     Overall, the theology in Added Upon is much more pronounced than the story (and often interrupts what would otherwise be natural characterization and dialog), but that only exemplifies how seriously Anderson took Whitney’s invitation to produce a literature from his earnest soul that was “for God’s glory, not man’s.”

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.