The Swedish
Academy today awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan, the American
singer/songwriter. Dylan, 75, is the
first musician to win the award, and his selection is certainly an unorthodox
choice and has received mixed reviews. In
choosing a popular musician, the Swedish Academy has redefined the boundaries
of literature, setting off a debate about whether song lyrics have the same
artistic value as poetry or novels.
In its
citation, the Swedish Academy credited Mr. Dylan with “having created new
poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the
Swedish Academy, likened Dylan's work and his literary merits to those of the
earliest Western poets: "If you look back, far back … you discover Homer
and Sappho. And they wrote poetic texts
that were meant to be listened to, they were meant to be performed, often together
with instruments. . . . But we still read Homer and Sappho and enjoy it. It's the same way with Bob Dylan. He can be
read and should be read, and is a great poet in the English tradition, in the
grand English poetic tradition" (https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2016/).
“Dylan's
lyrics have receives detailed scrutiny from academics and poets. Literary critic Christopher Ricks published Dylan's Visions of Sin, a 500-page
analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and
Tennyson, claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close
analysis. Former British poet laureate
Sir Andrew Motion argued that his lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the
Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan).
Dylan has
often sprinkled literary allusions into his music and cited the influence of
poetry on his lyrics. (See http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/10/books-bob-dylan-has-loved.html.) He has published poetry and prose, including
his 1971 collection, Tarantula, and Chronicles: Volume One, the first part
of his memoirs published in 2004, and six books of his art. Coincidentally, his collected lyrics from
1961-2012 are due out on Nov. 1.
The Nobel
comes with a prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or just over $1.2 million (CAD).
(Photo of Bob Dylan's childhood home taken by me in June 2011 in Hibbing, Minnesota. Note the name of the street.)
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