“Religion On Steroids"

As part of my personal learning to fulfill # 2 (non-fiction genre) and #3(write informally about my reading) outcomes, I read an article in BYU Studies Vol. 49, No. 2, 2010, by Thomas B. Griffith entitled Mere Mormonism.  This is an adaptation of C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and his classic exposition of the fundamentals of the Christian faith.  Humbly claiming to lack the skill to pull off such a fete, Griffith succeeded in identifying what is at the heart of the Mormon experience in an attempt to provide an introduction to the faith. 

I especially found his take on our relationship to others intriguing, as he begins this section with:  “For a people who believe that God is near and that he is not silent, Latter-day Saints place surprisingly little emphasis on the contemplative life.  Our primary focus, instead, is on relationships with other people.”  Claiming that LDS members like people and building communities is what they do best.”  Griffith uses the beehive as the closest thing LDS have as an icon.  He says, “Mormon life is profoundly social, and activity in the Church involves us deeply in the lives of others because in Mormonism God is served best—and perhaps only—by serving others.”  “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

Griffith tells how Sunday is hardly a day of rest for committed Mormons.  Beyond the three hour service, Sunday is filled with activities that begin with early morning planning meetings for those with leadership responsibilities and includes choir practices, training meetings, visits to each other’s homes, and evening activities for the youth—and that is only the first day of the week! 

Discussing Genre: The Holy Bible.

How do you discuss the genre of The Holy Bible without lending offense?

You don't.  Offense is inevitable. 

There's a comment Charly left on my previous post that got me thinking about it:

"Does the Bible have to be non-fiction to have value?"

My initial response:  No.  Of course not.  Are the works of Shakespeare fiction or non-fiction?  They're fiction, though some are based on true historical events.  But would The Bible need to be considered non-fiction to be studied in schools?

Does the genre really matter all that much when you're studying it for its literary content?  Maybe it does.  I guess that's what I'm wondering.  There's so much controversy over how to categorize the Bible.  Here are some screenshots of discussion comments left regarding this very question.

Trying to analyze The Bible as a genre has definitely given help and hinderance to my previously stated theses.  Perhaps I could change my argument: The Bible as non-fiction?  

Krakauerism

This past week I have been reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, who is also the author of Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven.  Krakauer is a well known writer focusing on the Sub-genre of outdoor and climbing non-fiction.  His work has been very successful, with three bestsellers, a big studio film adaptation, and many T.V. features and adaptations as well. 

Into the Wild is one of the first non-fiction novels about a subject that I was unfamiliar with that really interested me.  It follows the "big adventure" of Christopher McCandless's adventure to live in the wild of Alaska.  After four months after entering into the wild, he was found dead in 1992 by starvation in an abandoned bus.  I have read several music and film non-fictions/biographies, most of which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I can partly blame the enjoyment on my enthusiasm for the subject.  Into the Wild is an outdoors book at first glance, and I do enjoy the outdoors, but would not usually seek out on my own.  After reading, I realized that it was not at all about the technical or literal aspects of being outdoors, but rather why McCandless loved being on his own, depending on essentially nothing material.

Chris McCandless in the Alaskan wild

fêted artiste

This is my attempt to engage with the following Stegner quotation:

Salt Lake City is an easy town to know. You can see it all. Lying in a great bowl valley, it can be surmounted and comprehended and possessed wholly as few cities can. … The streets are marked by a system so logical that you can instantly tell not merely where you are but exactly how far you are from anywhere else … Looking into the blank walls of cities … breeds things in people that eventually have to be lanced.

Do you agree with me that the reader is the observer? Or do you think the author is the observer? Weigh in in the comments!

Does Great Literature Make Us Better?

In my personal reading, I read and shared a New York Times article entitled "Does Great Literature Make Us Better?" It's a provocative Cause/Effect claim, which boils down to "not necessarily."

Gregory Currie argues that while he personally enjoys and advocates reading literary fiction, the jury is still out on whether it makes us better people: more moral, more likely to treat our fellow humans with fairness, better able to make empathetic decisions.

Courtesy of NYTimes.com

I was intrigued by this idea:

Might it not be the other way around: that bright, socially competent and empathic people are more likely than others to find pleasure in the complex representations of human interaction we find in literature?

He's turning the Cause/Effect on its head: saying that it's possible that being a good person causes you to read good books, not vice versa.

Quotations

Here are some of the poems I intend to quote from in my paper on love poetry:

Petrarch Sonnets 3, 6, 101, 106, 151, 144, 132

Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare (1609)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


I would want to compare Sonnet 116 to:

Discussing Genre - Thesis

As of now, my thesis is mainly focused on the topic of genre and I will be using texts to support my argument of how love poetry can be detrimental and preach false ideas to the adolescent mind.  So, with love poetry as my genre, I am choosing to focus on the poems that are written in the context of being in love and falling in love.  I will lightly mention some of the heartbreak type poetry, which is definitely under the umbrella of love poetry, but some would consider it to be its own sub-genre, especially since the tone is most often opposite of the aforementioned types.

Since love poetry is such a large genre, I am going to try and hone in on the poems of the sub-genre I am titling, "Head-Over-Heals In Love" poems.  Very whimsical, airy, sometimes light feeling, other times VERY heavy.

Fortunately, everyone can relate to this genre in one way or another, whether they hate it or love it. Love is the most fundamental characteristics of humanity.  It is not a genre that is restricted to one time period or one philosophical movement.  It is universal and can be found in in literature from all different places and times.

Discussing the genre evidently benefits my argument because it is a part of my argument!