Bob Dylan - a literary genius?
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature because his ‘new poetic expressions’ defied existing popular music conventions, but people have enjoyed the binding of poetry and music for centuries. Dylan simply lead the way for poetry’s return to its roots.
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s award of the Noble Prize in Literature 2016 placed the following into question: how the work of the folk-rock artist relates to traditional forms of literature; what literature actually is; and more broadly the relationship between literary text and reality.
Definitions of literature are contestable. On the one hand, literature has traditionally been categorised as high art, identifying with a status class in contrast with mass culture; it’s ‘less worthy’ counterpart. The literature of William Shakespeare is understood to be central to the Western canon. Before The Swedish Academy entitled Dylan as a Noble Laureate last year "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", song lyrics were seldom, if ever, considered literature – at least at this level.
Writing for the New York Times, Anna North said "yes it is possible to analyse his lyrics like poems. But Mr. Dylan’s writing is inseparable from his music.. and when the Nobel committee gives the literature prize to a musician, it misses the opportunity to honour a writer.”
As the Vikings brought tales to life with the playing of the harp underscoring the voice, and firing up the imaginations of the listener to engage in the narrative - Dylan was simply ‘harping on’. The voice, unrefined and almost intoning the lyrics – it’s what is said, not how its sung. The accompaniment, a strumming acoustic guitar, joined by a harmonica between the verses to punctuate and enhance the message. Less is more. That is why the purists resented Dylan appearing on stage with an electric guitar; not just the abandoning of folk for commercial pop, but the betrayal of the text to popular attention seeking electric music.
Dylan’s ‘new poetic expressions’ defied existing popular music conventions, but people have enjoyed the binding of poetry and music for centuries. Dylan simply lead the way for poetry’s return to its roots following five hundred years of being a written domain, made possible by Gutenberg and his printing press. Dylan’s lyrics may be inseparable from their music, as North argues, but according to history, that does not make them not literature.
Literature makes use of language in complex and thoughtful ways. It asks more of a reader than ordinary text does. It forces them to grapple with language in ways day-to-day speech does not. Renown literary critic Terry Eagleton has said that literature "tells about what we do, not about the fixed being of things.” In this manner, all literature does not share inherent ‘literary’ qualities, but rather allows for a deeper understanding of the human condition. Eagleton concludes that calling a text literature says more about what people find valuable, rather than about the quality of the work itself. A text’s value is arbitrary and its affects are local and specific. On these grounds, cannot what is considered to be literature change also?
The award suggests modern literature is transforming. A field previously claimed by high culture and the educated class must now welcome popular song lyrics. The validation of Dylan’s work as literature means it will be read, sold and taught as such. If what literature is defined as is shifting - perhaps, so is power.
The award recalls how valuable Dylan’s songs were to the disempowered youth in the 1960s. ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’ captured a shared fear of a nuclear apocalypse. ‘Masters of War’ spoke for those outraged by the mass weapons build-up surrounding the Cold War. It was poetry served up as popular music – rather than prose – that engendered protest. It was performative and performativity is perhaps the very distinction between literature – or art, and entertainment.
As the literary theorist Andrew Bennet explains, literature can be "acts of language which themselves do things, as well as just talk about things". Dylan’s literature destabilises the text-reality dichotomy; it is not only inseparable from its music, but the world as a whole.
