so the midterm recital of king benjamin's speech was REALLY interesting today. for whatever reason, when i listened to the audio recording of the chapters we recited on lds.org, i was bored out of my mind. the realism that an in-your-face oral performance lends to a text, however, is absolutely captivating!! not only did verses i've read dozens of times come to life in a new and cohesive way, but to be a part of the recitation of the speech gave me a sense of responsibility, as was said in class. In addition, i felt a heightened understanding of the motivation, emotion and desires of the original speaker when memorized my verses knowing the speaker would be ME! the "part of a whole" quality of the verses i was assigned to read translated into a "part of a whole" feeling towards my responsibility - i knew that my success or failure meant more than my grade, it would reflect on the class as a whole and possibly inhibit other performers from being able to perform their part. i feel that this unity or team feeling was the real miracle today - i found myself internally cheering for a whole bunch of people I've never talked to and who i had nothing really in common with, except the shared experience of frantically memorizing a bunch of scriptures over the weekend. just because i had been through that, too, i understood their struggles and rejoiced in their success. though we haven't really talked about the unity that oral traditions create between performers, i think this is one of the strongest of ways that the oral unifies people.
good job everyone!!
It's quite true. It bonded the class.
ReplyDeleteI really like the bit you mention about the sermon coming to life and the speech cohering, as I've always read it (Mosiah, chapters 2-4, for those that might be reading from outside the class) in bits and pieces, often emphasizing some pedagogical point without hearing it come together and flow.
In addition, I liked how the 'choreographer' (if you will) had the entire class reciting parts, groups reciting others, and individuals reciting the majority. It seemed a lot more like a community event, as indeed it was when it was recorded.
I think it was Hugh Nibley that took this sermon apart and analyzed it according to several ancient speaker-chorus-audience ceremonies. It's actually a fairly common pattern as I recall, and it was neat to hear some of that familiarity and humanity restored to the words.
hmm... bro nibley's analysis of this would be really interesting!!
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