Bob Dylan wins Nobel Literature Prize

[Richard Tarleton]

Machaut? The Trobadours?

from Michael Gray, "Song and Dance Man lll - The Art of Bob Dylan", ch. 2 - Dylan and the Literary Tradition.

[Dylan] has chosen a medium we are unused to taking seriously: an inseparable mixture of music and words - and we grew up finding this a cheap and trivial formula. We should look beyond the Elizabethan age to the time when troubadours were an important part of our culture, when that culture was orally dominated and when sophisticated art was the same in kind as the heritage 'of the people'.

If Marshall McLuhan is right, if our electric technology is pushing us forward into another orally dominated age, then it shouldn't be surprising to find a serious artist once again at work in the medium Dylan has chosen. Nor can it astonish us that such an artist can have reforged the links between folk and sophisticated culture.

The idea that Dylan might not sell as a slim volume is to miss the point of what Dylan's art is? - it doesn't fit neatly into the pigeon-holes (Gray's expression) we are used to. (I think the Nobel citation gets it).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We have the music of Machaut, but not a record of performance (as far as I know). Similarly (probably moreso) with the troubs. Which was what I meant by 'no authentic record of music/performance'.

Then I'm not sure what was your point in #118. There's no film of Shakespeare acting - there is of Nobel recipient Harold Pinter.

Recording (sound and images) is very much a recent development - "writing Music, words and performing" isn't.

[Richard Tarleton]

Then I'm not sure what was your point in #118. There's no film of Shakespeare acting - there is of Nobel recipient Harold Pinter.

Recording (sound and images) is very much a recent development - "writing Music, words and performing" isn't.

Yes - we don't have recordings of the Troubadours, for obv. reasons, but know what they did.

(you beat me by a split second ferney, see #121)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(you beat me by a split second ferney, see #121)

I can't help feeling that frenchie was making a point that I haven't "seen", though.

[Richard Tarleton]

I can't help feeling that frenchie was making a point that I haven't "seen", though.

I know, I keep missing ff's points on this thread

[french frank]

Oh dear, I thought I was making a point so simple it was hardly worth pointing it out

Then I'm not sure what was your point in #118. There's no film of Shakespeare acting - there is of Nobel recipient Harold Pinter.

Don't understand that point!

I was taking up Serial's point from … last time he said something. Where he mentioned Schubert setting songs but not writing the words. But his contribution to the song was the music. Dylan, I presume, got the Literature prize for his words. In other words not for his music, performance, persona - the things that were part and parcel of what he was/is. I was - if you like - casting doubt on whether you could separate the words from the rest of him.

In #118 my response was directly back to Schubert not writing the words to his songs, and saying "Writing music, words and performing is very much a recent development". I would dispute that we know very much about how the troubadours looked and sounded when performing, which is why I specifically mentioned 'very early examples'.

[Richard Tarleton]

Ah

Dylan, I presume, got the Literature prize for his words.

I think the Nobel citation was a bit more nuanced than that - “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

Sort of, recognising a bit of category shift?

[french frank]

Ah


I think the Nobel citation was a bit more nuanced than that - “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

Sort of, recognising a bit of category shift?

Or even creating a category for him? That's impressive!

[Richard Tarleton]

Or even creating a category for him? That's impressive!

Electric troubadour!

[french frank]

Electric troubadour!

Eat yer heart out, Rambo d'Orange