2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".[1] The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy on 13 October 2016.[2]

Bob Dylan

Laureate
Main article: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is a songwriter and singer whose songs are rooted in the tradition of American folk music and are influenced by the poets of modernist literature and the beatnik movement. He has also written books in prose.[3]

Reactions

The 2016 choice of Bob Dylan was the first time a musician and songwriter won the Nobel for Literature. The award caused some controversy, particularly among writers arguing that the literary merits of Dylan's work are not equal to those of some of his peers. Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddine tweeted that "Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars."[4] The French writer Pierre Assouline described the decision as "contemptuous of writers".[5] In a live webchat hosted by The Guardian, Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård said that "I'm very divided. I love that the Nobel committee opens up for other kinds of literature – lyrics and so on. I think that's brilliant. But knowing that Dylan is the same generation as Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, makes it very difficult for me to accept it."[6] Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh said "I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies."[7] Dylan's songwriting peer and friend Leonard Cohen said that no prizes were necessary to recognize the greatness of the man who transformed pop music with records like Highway 61 Revisited. "To me," Cohen said, "[the Nobel] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain."[8] Writer and commentator Will Self wrote that the award "cheapened" Dylan whilst hoping the laureate would "follow Sartre in rejecting the award".[9]

Literary Influences and References in Dylan’s Work

References to poets and other writers have played a notable role in Dylan’s work from the artist’s early days in the 1960s and 70s.  Dylan’s lyrics over the decades have directly named, among others: William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Erica Jong, James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, Edgar Allen Poe, Ezra Pound, Arthur Rimbaud and William Shakespeare.

In 2017, the year after Dylan received his Nobel Prize, Harvard University Classics Professor Richard F. Thomas published a book entitled Why Bob Dylan Matters.  In this work, Thomas suggests that Dylan’s lyrics contain many literary allusions, including to the works of classic poets Homer, Ovid and Virgil.  To support this claim, Thomas offered multiple examples of Dylan’s 21st-century lyrics side-by-side with lines from these poets. Towards the beginning of his book, Thomas further argues for situating Dylan firmly alongside those whose work seems to have inspired him, noting: "For the past forty years, as a classics professor, I have been living in the worlds of the Greek and Roman poets, reading them, writing about them, and teaching them to students in their original languages and in English translation. I have for even longer been living in the world of Bob Dylan’s songs, and in my mind Dylan long ago joined the company of those ancient poets.".[10]

Thomas (2017) ends by addressing Dylan’s Nobel Lecture, during which- the author points out- Dylan extensively discussed three particular works of literature and the impressions these works made on him: Homer's the Odyssey, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Many prominent literary figures, in turn, expressed their admiration for Dylan in the wake of the artist’s Nobel milestone. A 2016 article from the New York Times noted that among the writers praising Dylan and the decision to award him a Nobel Prize in Literature were authors Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Salman Rushdie and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. Rushdie is quoted in that article as calling Dylan "the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition."[11]

References
  1. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 nobelprize.org
  2. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 Prize Announcement nobelprize.org
  3. Bob Dylan Facts nobelprize.org
  4. Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars, Rabih Alameddine's Twitter page, 13 October 2016.
  5. Le bras d'honneur des Nobel à la littérature américaine, La Républic, Ocbtober 13, 2016.
  6. Karl Ove Knausgaard webchat – your questions answered on self-loathing, love and Jürgen Klopp, The Guardian, 17 October 2016.
  7. "Don't think twice, it's all right: Bob Dylan wins Nobel Lit". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. 13 October 2016. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  8. Leonard Cohen: giving Nobel to Bob Dylan like 'pinning medal on Everest', Guardian, 13 October 2016.
  9. "'Dylan towers over everyone' – Salman Rushdie, Kate Tempest and more pay tribute to Bob Dylan". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  10. Thomas, Richard F. (2017). Why Bob Dylan Matters. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-06-268573-5.
  11. Sisario, Ben; Alter, Alexandra; Chan, Sewell (October 13, 2016). "Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize, Redefining Boundaries of Literature". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.