How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of 'imitatio' to craft some of the most original songs of hi

[cbabe]

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/bob-dylan/

How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of 'imitatio' to craft some of the most original songs of his time

Over the course of six decades, Bob Dylan steadily brought together popular music and poetic excellence. Yet the guardians of literary culture have only rarely accepted Dylan’s legitimacy.

His 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature undermined his outsider status, challenging scholars, fans and critics to think of Dylan as an integral part of international literary heritage. My new book, “No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan,” takes this challenge seriously and places Dylan within a literary tradition that extends all the way back to the ancients.

…more long read…

[Wounded Bear]

1. Always thought of him as the best poet of the folk/rock era...nt

[mitch96]

2. At my first "real" job at 16 I had Dylan swimming around my head.

When I hear those songs now this old geezer thinks of those innocent times...
He made my heart warm in a sea of turmoil..
I hear the lyrics
"Once upon a time you dressed so fine Threw the bums a dime in your prime"
And I'm gone..
It's amazing how a song or a smell can snap me right back
to a different time and place..
m

[IbogaProject]

3. He says it clearly in Tangled Up In Blue

[Verse 5]
She lit a burner on the stove
And offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You look like the silent type"
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue

[mitch96]

4. 👍