Malibu, California's own Bob Dylan may reject Nobel Prize for Literature

You wrote a lot, most of which I agree with. For the record, I wasn't trying to say that literature is limited to novels, but I do see how it came across that way. My attempt at a point was that music may deserve a distinction of it's own. I do see the similarities between Dylan and the great troubadours of the past, though. He's more than a musician.

You may have sold me. I think the main rub is seeing music compete with other forms of literature. To me it's like having one Nobel laureate for "science" and calling it a day. They break out other disciplines. But I guess it would become like the Olympics with 500 of these being given left and right.

I'm fine with Dylan winning the prize the more I think about it.

Eew, Euopeans SUCK! wrote:

To receive the $1M Nobel Prize, BD is required to present a lecture, and then he would be given the money. What a crock of bull. Why should BD kow-tow to those apes of Europe? Hell, our ancestors got the eff out of smelly, fascist Europe because Europeans never wipe after #2.

That comes from a country where almost half the population is ready to vote for Trump.

What people need to remember is that the Nobel Prize for literature has less to do with the quality of the work and more to do with its political bent. Philip Roth should have already won a decade or more ago, but because he is an American novelist, and his novels are often cynical or features a bleak view, he cannot win.

Given the definition of the Nobel Prize, it actually makes more sense that Dylan won than Roth or Pynchon. He's an American, yes, but a musician and lyricist, not a novelist, he was indeed very influential, and his music has a political angle pleasing to the years of European intellectuals.

Here's my take:

If a playwright is eligible then why not a songwriter? Both are written for performance amidst other contributions.

I can see people arguing whether or not his work is good enough (I believe it is) but I don't see why it shouldn't be eligible.

Dude is awesome wrote:

Robert Allen Zimmerman has not responded to the Nobel folks as of today.

Proud Angeleno Bob Dylan doesn't need to go to Sweden/Norway. He doesn't need the money and why would a musician and songwriter want a Nobel award when he has everything he ever wanted already.

Is it Literature wrote:

Elite Liberal Arts College wrote:

We all know he wrote great lyrics and great songs. Some of the best ever written. Is it literature? That is the question.

Homer is literature. Poe is literature. Dylan is literature. Story telling in verse style (Homer), poetry (Poe), and poetry with musical rhythm (Dylan).

"The Iliad" is in dactylic hexameter. To read order to read it properly, you need to differentiate between long and short syllables. "The Iliad" is rhythmical.

How about Poe's "The Bells" done in song form?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3FzveBu_34

So, yes, Dylan is Literature.

I really liked Poe's album "Haunted" too bad the record deal she signed was all screwed up and she did not produce anything after that.

It isn't the music, it is the words Dylan is getting the prize for. The Literature prize should not be awarded to any musical artist who doesn't have a large body of work where the words take front stage. You can read Dylan's lyrics as poetry or as storytelling.

DIII Has Been wrote:

What people need to remember is that the Nobel Prize for literature has less to do with the quality of the work and more to do with its political bent. Philip Roth should have already won a decade or more ago, but because he is an American novelist, and his novels are often cynical or features a bleak view, he cannot win.

Given the definition of the Nobel Prize, it actually makes more sense that Dylan won than Roth or Pynchon. He's an American, yes, but a musician and lyricist, not a novelist, he was indeed very influential, and his music has a political angle pleasing to the years of European intellectuals.

You didn´t answer my f@cking question! In what way is the prize "political"?

They have given the prize to people of every political color in the last decades.

Americans are just being butthurt because people in other parts of the world don´t fall on their knees in front of your mediocre writers.

This is thucking disgraceful giving this award to someone that hasn't helped the children like I have.

He hasn't written a decent song for nearly 45 thucking years the miserable Kunt.

It should be awarded to an honourable sportsman who has helped the children.

Poetry and lyrics are different things because poems aren't written to be sung or to be accompanied by music, and lyrics are. There can be crossover: it often works well to find a poem that's rhythmic, rhymed, or both and put music to it. But that often leads to the addition of refrains and/or other repetition, which aren't nearly as common to poetry. Conversely, if a song lyric is read on paper, especially by someone who doesn't already know the song, it will often read awkwardly, for the simple reason that it wasn't made to be appreciated that way. It was made to be sung and, typically, to be accompanied by at least one instrument. It's often even made (not technically "written" at all in this case) spontaneously while the lyricist plays and sings. Its words therefore inevitably interact with the music, both aiding and depending on it. Just as clearly, the lyrics then owe something to the music, and that something, when subtracted, leaves it an isolated part of an artwork--not the whole thing, which is a song.

Poems have to do the whole thing on their own; sometimes they do well orally, and sometimes they don't at all. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," despite its (ironic) name, would make a very difficult song to sing, to accompany, or to follow in sense. E.E. Cummings' poems would lose all of their typographical intricacies if they were made into lyrics. Emily Dickenson's poems would do pretty well, comparatively, because they're typically rhymed and metered, but they're often about four lines long and would invite adaptation via repeated lines or a full repetition of the poem (very common to lyrics; virtually unheard of in poetry). That doesn't mean that some interested musician couldn't do creative things with even Eliot's poems--but the result would then be songs with lyrics and would be judged differently and on different merits. A great poem doesn't necessarily make a great song, and great lyrics definitely don't often stand up as great poems. They don't have to, and the people who made them weren't trying to get them to.

Poetry and lyrics are different things because poems aren't written to be sung or to be accompanied by music, and lyrics are. There can be crossover: it often works well to find a poem that's rhythmic, rhymed, or both and put music to it. But that often leads to the addition of refrains and/or other repetition, which aren't nearly as common to poetry. Conversely, if a song lyric is read on paper, especially by someone who doesn't already know the song, it will often read awkwardly, for the simple reason that it wasn't made to be appreciated that way. It was made to be sung and, typically, to be accompanied by at least one instrument. It's often even made (not technically "written" at all in this case) spontaneously while the lyricist plays and sings. Its words therefore inevitably interact with the music, both aiding and depending on it. Just as clearly, the lyrics then owe something to the music, and that something, when subtracted, leaves it an isolated part of an artwork--not the whole thing, which is a song.

Poems have to do the whole thing on their own; sometimes they do well orally, and sometimes they don't at all. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," despite its (ironic) name, would make a very difficult song to sing, to accompany, or to follow in sense. E.E. Cummings' poems would lose all of their typographical intricacies if they were made into lyrics. Emily Dickinson's poems would do pretty well, comparatively, because they're typically rhymed and metered, but they're often about four lines long and would invite adaptation via repeated lines or a full repetition of the poem (very common to lyrics; virtually unheard of in poetry). That doesn't mean that some interested musician couldn't do creative things with even Eliot's poems--but the result would then be songs with lyrics and would be judged differently and on different merits. A great poem doesn't necessarily make a great song, and great lyrics definitely don't often stand up as great poems. They don't have to, and the people who made them weren't trying to get them to.

Robert Young wrote:

This is thucking disgraceful giving this award to someone that hasn't helped the children like I have.

He hasn't written a decent song for nearly 45 thucking years the miserable Kunt.

It should be awarded to an honourable sportsman who has helped the children.

Each, Kanye West should get it before Dylan.

Norway was conquered by the Germans in WWII and continued an active resistance until the end of the war.

F U C K Norway wrote:

Norway was part of the AXIS in WWII and Zim is a Jew.

Really? Blood On The Tracks was by far some of his best work...Nashville Skyline wasn't so bad either.

I agree, Blood On The Tracks was what elevates his body of work to something "Nobel worthy". A dissolution of a marriage conveyed in a musical/lyrical format .

Learn some history wrote:

Norway was conquered by the Germans in WWII and continued an active resistance until the end of the war.

F U C K Norway wrote:

Norway was part of the AXIS in WWII and Zim is a Jew.

The 500B.C. Asiatic conquest of Norway was the beginning of ANTI-Semitism against Arabs and Jews.

"Blood on the Tracks" was great...I already agreed with that. But, anyone who throws out "Nashville Skyline" as one of his best albums loses all credibility.

There's some nice little songs on there like "I Threw it All Away' And "Lay Lady Lay"

Snubbing the shitheads in fascist Europe would be the L.A. thing to do.

I seem to remember the NP was $over a mill, like, 20 years ago. What happened? I have no probs with Dylan winning. Most literature winners write obscure drivel that like 10 people actually read.