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Miltons and shakespeares of our own

Various · Wayfare · ·28 min read
Commentary by Hex Index staff

This piece reframes a famous 19th-century religious speech not as a dusty artifact of faith, but as the blueprint for a sophisticated educational movement that predated modern liberal arts curricula by decades. Wayfare uncovers a startling historical irony: the call to create "Miltons and Shakespeares" was rooted in an economic philosophy of self-sufficiency, transforming the concept of "home industries" into a mandate for intellectual production.

From Silk to Sonnets

The article's most distinctive insight is its refusal to treat Orson F. Whitney's 1888 address as purely spiritual rhetoric. Instead, Wayfare traces the lineage of "Home Literature" back to tangible economic enterprises like sugar beet cultivation and the silk industry, noting that the term was a rhetorical adaptation of these material efforts. The piece argues that for Whitney's audience, creating their own culture was an act of community survival and pride, mirroring their production of physical goods via Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution.

Miltons and shakespeares of our own

This historical grounding gives weight to Whitney's famous proclamation: "We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own." Wayfare reports that this wasn't a vague hope but a strategic directive born from the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, which had already formalized public speaking statistics decades prior. By 1888, local associations were reporting thousands of declamations and testimonies, creating a rigorous infrastructure for oratory before the literary vision was even fully articulated.

"Above all things, we must be original," Whitney asserts. "Our literature must live and breathe for itself. Our mission is diverse from all others; our literature must also be."

The editors note that this demand for originality was coupled with a surprisingly expansive definition of education. While critics might assume a religious youth program would limit reading to scripture, the piece highlights how Whitney explicitly broadened the scope to include "history, poetry, philosophy, art and science, languages, government—all truth in fact, wherever found." This aligns with the classical concept of paideia, suggesting that for this community, learning was not a distraction from faith but a requirement for eternal progression.

The Architecture of Oratory

What makes this coverage particularly compelling is its analysis of how these ideas were transmitted. Wayfare emphasizes that Whitney's vision was delivered orally to thousands, utilizing the rhythmic patterns and parallelisms of spoken word to embed the message in the collective consciousness. The piece points out that even in written form, the speech retains a "performative escalation," using techniques like anadiplosis to build emotional momentum.

The article details how this oral tradition was institutionalized through reading courses and periodicals like The Contributor, which was explicitly titled to encourage youth submission. This created a feedback loop where the act of writing and speaking was normalized, not just among leaders but across the demographic. As Wayfare observes, "If the Mormon people could not have their own Shakespeare without reading his sonnets or appreciating Hamlet, then they must do that reading. And they did."

Critics might argue that this focus on a specific religious subculture limits the piece's broader applicability to general literary history. However, the editors successfully counter this by showing how these mechanisms—structured reading lists, youth publishing outlets, and formal rhetoric training—mirror the very foundations of modern humanistic education systems.

"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."

The commentary suggests that Whitney's dual legacy is often misunderstood; he inspired both a humanistic breadth to education and a specific cultural sensibility. The piece notes that this vision was realized through "curricula, activities, contests, and ample opportunities to publish," turning abstract ideals into a tangible literary ecosystem.

Bottom Line

Wayfare's analysis succeeds by stripping away the myth of anti-intellectualism often associated with religious movements, revealing instead a highly organized, ambitious project of cultural self-creation. The strongest part of this argument is its demonstration that "Home Literature" was an extension of economic independence, proving that for this community, producing books was as vital as producing silk or sugar. The biggest vulnerability lies in the piece's reliance on internal success metrics; while it documents the intent and infrastructure, a fuller picture would require more critical assessment of the actual literary quality produced during these early decades versus the didactic nature acknowledged by later scholars.

Deep Dives

Explore these related deep dives:

  • ZCMI

    Understanding this specific economic entity reveals that Whitney's call for 'Home Literature' was a rhetorical pivot from tangible industrial self-sufficiency to cultural production, reframing the speech as an extension of Mormon economic theology rather than just artistic encouragement.

  • Young Men (organization)

    Exploring this organization clarifies why Whitney addressed a youth group with such high-stakes prophetic language, showing how the YMMIA functioned as a unique incubator for Mormon intellectualism and leadership training distinct from standard Sunday worship.

  • Contributor

    This specific periodical serves as the primary vehicle where Whitney's 'Home Literature' vision was first tested, offering readers insight into how early Mormon writers navigated the tension between didactic religious instruction and genuine artistic expression.

Sources

Miltons and shakespeares of our own

by Various · Wayfare · Read full article

This post is part of a collaborative series between Wayfare and Latter-day Eloquence: Two Centuries of Mormon Oratory, which is available to order here. (Use code S26UIP for a 30% discount!)

Orson F. Whitney (1855–1931) was a renowned Mormon man of letters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a journalist, newspaper editor, educator, poet, and historian. When Whitney delivered his “Home Literature” address, he was thirty-three and recently returned from a mission to England, where he edited the Church’s Millennial Star. At the time, he was bishop of a Salt Lake City ward that he would lead for twenty-eight years. The grandson of the Church’s second bishop, Newel K. Whitney, Orson would later serve twenty-five years as an apostle.

The occasion for Whitney’s speech was the annual summer conference of the YMMIA (Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association) held June 2–3, 1888. Although primarily for Church youth and their leaders, this weekend gathering was a de facto general conference of the Church, consisting of several hours-long sessions of speeches and many musical performances by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and others. Thousands attended.

Over time, Whitney’s “Home Literature” address has been received as a prophetic blessing upon Mormon authors and artists, summed up in Whitney’s heady proclamation, “We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.”1 As an accomplished orator, Whitney used his hortatory rhetoric to move the youth toward better appreciation of the world’s literary achievements and greater confidence in achieving their own. Home literature meant more than Mormon-authored poetry or novels; it meant becoming at home with literature’s powers and scope; it meant matching those powers to the scope of Mormon belief and the breadth of Mormon experience.

“Home Literature” would be the term used by later Mormon man of letters Eugene England to label the LDS literary period from 1880 to 1930. This period marked the first flowering of an independent Mormon literature attempting to fulfill Whitney’s vision—though, as England notes, such writing was largely amateur fiction and poetry of a didactic nature.2 Home literature still labels a genre of popular writing that emerged in the LDS book market in the 1970s (mostly historical, young adult, or romance fiction) that is largely by, about, and for Mormons.

The origins of Home Literature, however, were not, in fact, literary. Leading up to Whitney’s speech had been decades of Mormon economic enterprises known collectively as “home industries”—such as ...