JOSEPH SMITH AND SHAKESPEARE

The matter of Joseph Smith’s “quoting Shakespeare” should be (and has been) dealt with by someone besides me. All it done for me is to make me angry and disgusted. If men went to say something worthy of attention, I am glad to give them my attention. I am not about to listen to piddling cavils that are beneath the notice of intelligent people. I have often said, and I believe that I have proved it here, that I can raise more serious objects to the Book of Mormon than any I have heard from its detractors outside the Church. They simply haven’t read it. Some may, indeed, have gone through the words, but they must have been like hounds on a scent: they were searching for something, and that something was not the truth.

Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth. (2 Nephi 1:14)

The Problem

Did Joseph Smith quote Shakespeare?

Well, suppose he did! Many people have done it. I have done it myself, and loved it. It must be remembered that the language of the Book of Mormon is substantially the language of Joseph Smith, that is, language that he used or to which he had access. Though he was unlettered, he was by no means ignorant. That he knew, and used, his Bible is evident throughout. He can quote liberally form Isaiah, but let him refer once to Shakespeare and he is damned. Joseph went to many sources probably so long as these sources said what his text was saying. He was translating, putting ideas into words, and he was free to use any words that served his purpose better than any other words. It would not be surprising that he had heard many times quotations from the great soliloquy. Millions of persons have heard it. IT is quoted every day. If Joseph had included as part of his inspired record all of Hamlet, I should then have given the matter a second thought.

As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that he was quoting Hamlet at all. Wouldn’t it be an amazing thing if in the entire history of the human race two thoughtful and literature man should use an identical expression in writing of the universal subject of death? Why, poets and writers use the same language all the time. As littler as I know about literature, I could in half an hour given a number of instances of this.