Articles Tagged with Dylan
Dylan and the Nobel
This article argues for Bob Dylan’s nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Traditional criteria for the award include outstanding idealism and work that benefits mankind, criteria that are easily met in Dylan’s case, given his activism in early 1960s civil rights, antiwar compositions, and beyond. Yet questions have been raised concerning Dylan’s eligibility for such an award. Can a literary prize go to a writer of song? Past Nobels in Literature display a breadth that admits such a lineage, however, and the connections between music and poetry have been noted by Laureates Rabindranath Tagore and W. B. Yeats. The Literature Prize has gone to historians and philosophers as well. Moreover, a close examination of selections from Dylan’s lyrics shows that as texts on the page, they compare favorably with literary masters such as Chekhov, Faulkner, and Rimbaud; that they resist many scholarly attempts at schematization testifies to their power as poetry. In terms of global appreciation, Dylan’s work has not merely survived but triumphed. From whatever standpoint Dylan’s work is viewed, this article argues that it deserves consideration for literature’s highest prize.
Read more »Amerindian Roots of Bob Dylan’s Poetry
In an application of both the findings and the methods of structural anthropology as laid out in the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and pursued in the works of Désveaux, this article seeks to account for traces of Amerindian folklore as source material in the writings of Bob Dylan. These influences are discussed in terms of some thematic and poetic images specific to Amerindian traditions, a conception of relationships between the sexes, and an eschatological design in which paradise is not situated in a differentiated time but in a parallel space—an outlook similar to many Amerindian worldviews. These influences are also interpreted with respect to style, borrowing the notion of cognitive style as defined by Elaine Jahner. As a conclusion, the author poses the question of transmission, considering emanations from learned culture as well as those from popular culture as possible channels of influences on Bob Dylan’s writings.
Read more »Nothing’s Been Changed, Except the Words: Some Faithful Attempts at Covering Bob Dylan Songs in French
This article deals with the French translation and performed covers of Bob Dylan songs, with a view to setting forth the general rules of adapting songs into another language. Using a large number of examples, this article first explains the difference between covering and translating, which is first and foremost a matter of meter and scansion. The article then explores two approaches to “faithfulness”: one can either be faithful to the sound of the initial words or to the meaning. What is at stake here is the concept of distance: we need intercessors, but still want them removed from the picture. Rather than creators, the singers covering foreign songs have to be considered as transmitters. That is why most of those efforts, whatever their commercial success, often fail to impress as genuine works of art.
Read more »