What is the Challenge for LDS Writers and Artists?

An article by Dialogue’s poetry editor, David Haglund, in a recent edition of Slate wonders (again) where those Mormon Miltons and Shakespeares might be, and whether we may have skipped a few centuries and produced a Mormon Philip Roth instead.   He links to this 2003 article by John and Kirsten Rector, still one of the most important considerations of Orson F. Whitney’s famous prediction.
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“We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.”
—Orson F. Whitney
SINCE THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH, Mormon spiritual leaders have emphasized the importance of attaining knowledge, both spiritual and secular.  Not only have we been admonished to seek and value learning, but church leaders have predicted that church members would surpass the rest of the world in their scholarly and artistic accomplishments.  President John Taylor exclaimed,

You will see the day that Zion will be far ahead of the outside world in everything pertaining to learning of every kind as we are today in regard to religious matters. God expects Zion to become the praise and glory of the whole earth, so that kings, hearing of her fame, will come and gaze upon her glory.

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