Product Description

In 'Ballad of a Thin Man' in 1966, Dylan launched a withering attack on the myopic critic of culture: 'Something is happening here/ And you don't know what it is,/ Do you, Mister Jones?' Yet Dylan himself has been a subject of consuming interest to many of the most significant poets and critics writing in Britain and Ireland over the last twenty years. It has even been argued that he is the finest living user of the English language - true to his genius through all his changes of stance, a romantic constantly exploring the state of his soul as he dons the cloak of lover, clown, cowboy, priest, bleak prophet of doom. In this collection, poets and professors explore different aspects of Dylan's work, writing about his impact on their own intellectual and artistic lives as well as his wider influence. Contributors include Simon Armitage, Richard Brown, Christopher Butler, Bryan Cheyette, Patrick Crotty, Aidan Day, Mark Ford, Lavinia Greenlaw, Daniel Karlin, Paul Muldoon, Nicholas Roe, Pam Thurschwell, Susan Wheeler and Sean Wilentz. Serious Dylan criticism is rare and these fascinating, specially commissioned essays are rigorous and challenging, at once a celebration and a questioning of a powerful talent, the genius Leonard Cohen called 'the Picasso of song'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #856607 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From the Publisher
Dylan laid bare by leading poets and critics.

From the Back Cover
In 'Ballad of a Thin Man' in 1965, Dylan launched a withering attack on the myopic critic of culture:
'Something is happening here But you don't know what it is, Do you, Mister Jones?'
Yet Dylan himself has been a subject of consuming interest to many of the most significant poets and critics over the last thirty years. It has even been argued that he is the finest living user of the English language - true to his genius through all his changes of stance, constantly exploring the state of his soul as he dons the cloak of lover, clown, cowboy, priest, bleak prophet of doom.
In this collection, poets and professors explore different aspects of Dylan's work, writing about his impact on their own intellectual and artistic lives, as well as his wider influence. These fascinating, specially commissioned essays are rigorous and challenging, at once a celebration and a questioning of a powerful talent, the genius Leonard Cohen called 'the Picasso of song'.

About the Author
Neil Corcoran is Professor of English at the University of St Andrews, and author of works on Seamus Heaney and on modern English and Irish literature.

Customer Reviews

Professor and Poets
This is an edited collection of essays (and a poem) put together by Neil Corcoran of St Andrews University in Scotland where Dylan was given an honorary doctorate in mid June, preceded by an oration by Corcoran. The last time he accepted a doctorate was in 1970 at Princeton. This is one of a growing number of books by academics taking Dylan seriously, and not just obsessed with facts about his life. Recently we have had Stephen Scobie's Alias Bob Dylan; Christopehr Ricks, Dylan's Visions of Sin; David Boucher's Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll;, and shortly an edited collection by Boucher and Gary Browning entitled, The Political Art of Bob Dylan. The introduction emphasises Dylan's own anti-intellectualism and his negative attitude to critics and academics. The book includes discussions of familiar and unfamiliar themes. Of the former Christopher Butler elegantly argues that there is a close relation between the lyrics and the music, the music commanding attention to the words. Generally speaking the essays are rather equivocal on the question of whether Dylan is a poet. Indeed, the editor tells us that 'Dylan cannot without reserve be viewed as a poet'. Simon Armitage argues that literary criticism is not the right tool for analysing song lyrics, but this does not deter other contributors, such as Mark Ford, from ignoring the point. Ford, like Gray and Ricks, deal with Dylan in a similar fashion, that is seizing upon allusions and co-incidences that remind them of other poems or poets. He argues, for example, 'In the contexts of the myth of America, the addressee of 'Like a Rolling Stone' really should 'have it made': having 'nothing to lose' is what links, say Melville's Ishmael and Hawthorne's Pearl, Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Cooper's Natty Bumppo...'(This approach is criticised by Boucher in his Dylan and Cohen along the lines of what more do we know about a particular poem by telling readers that similar lines are to be found elsewhere!). The collection is a good and varied read and I recommend it to all Dylan fans interested in more than finding out new facts.