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Bob Dylan and the Classics

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Introduction

When the American folk and rock musician Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, the rationale for this decision was questioned around the world (Ball, 2011). The Nobel Prize for Literature is conferred by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, and is regarded as the ultimate accolade in terms of literary achievement. The official judgement of the Nobel Committee was that Dylan should receive the award for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The Nobel Committee further suggested that Dylan is a poet in the tradition of the Ancient Greek poets Homer and Sappho, who originally wrote poetic texts which were meant to be performed to music but have become works which are primarily read to be enjoyed, and that Dylan’s work is similarly interchangeable (Thomas, 2017a). Dylan is known to draw particularly on Classical texts in his songwriting, occurring much later in his career compared to his relationship with the Bible (Thomas, 2011:142-145). So, let’s explore the songwriting of Dylan and its connection to the Classics.

Dylan’s Background

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on 24th May 1941 to a middle class Jewish family in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year and travelled to New York City, where he began playing folk music in the coffee houses and clubs around Greenwich Village. Dylan’s mentor at this time was Ray Gooch, whose extensive library provided Dylan with the intellectual stimulus of Byron, Shelley, Poe, Faulkner, as well as the classic texts of Thucydides, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pericles and Ovid. This ensured that Dylan’s classical high school education was suitably augmented in his early years, despite his lack of a formal college education, acting as a source of inspiration for his songwriting in later years. Dylan quickly established himself as a gifted musician and songwriter in both folk and rock genres, becoming a powerful influence on 1960’s counterculture. Songs such as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, ‘Masters of War’ and ‘The Times They Are a Changin’ were adopted as anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements, despite Dylan’s denial of an intentional protest agenda (Spitz, 1989:9-206; Thomas, 2017a). Dylan has continued to write songs, record, perform and collaborate to critical acclaim.

Intertextuality

Dylan is renowned for extensive intertextuality in his song writing. Intertextuality can be defined as the deliberate or unintentional shaping of a text’s meaning by another text, either by strategies such as allusion or parody, or by forging interconnections between similar or related works. Intertextuality is therefore a feature of all texts. Intertextuality can be an unconscious phenomenon; a phrase or melody being heard and forgotten about, then later resurfacing. However, a fine line exists between intertextuality and plagiarism, and Dylan has been subject to both descriptions, having been accused of musical plagiarism throughout his career (Jacobi, 2009:76).

Dylan is known to incorporate literature of various genres into his song writing, such as his homage to Robert Burns’ 1789 lyric ‘My heart’s in the highlands, gentle and fair’, from the closing track of ‘Time Out of Mind’ (Dylan, 1997; Yaffe, 2009:24).

Similarly, the 1974 album ‘Blood on the Tracks’ was inspired by Chekhov stories (Brownstein, 2009:158). Dylan is famously reticent regarding interviews, tending to only do so to promote new releases. He is similarly guarded with the contents of these interviews, and never volunteers the sources of his lyrical intertextuality unless directly questioned. This phenomenon of drawing from Classical texts has been studied by the Harvard University Professor of Classics Richard F. Thomas, who has written extensively regarding this, and argues that Dylan uses intertextuality as a literary tool (Thomas, 2016).

Dylan and Virgil

‘Lonesome Day Blues’ from the album ‘Love and Theft’ (Dylan, 2001) is the first example to be considered in demonstrating how Dylan incorporates ancient texts in his song writing. Dylan successfully employs a diverse intertextuality from three different textual genres in this particular song. As well as the epic journey of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid, we have Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, which depicts the coming of age journey of a young boy travelling the Mississippi River in the USA and explores themes of race and identity. The third text is Junichi Saga’s Confessions of a Yazuka, which recounts the life of a 20th century gangster who fought in the Chinese-Japanese War (1937-1945) (Thomas, 2011:136-138). Dylan draws on Huckelberry Finn: ‘my pa he died and left me, my brother got killed in the war, my sister, she ran off and got married, never was heard of any more’ and Confessions of a Yazuka: ‘My captain, he’s decorated, he’s well-schooled and he’s skilled, he’s not sentimental, don’t bother him at all, how many of his pals have been killed’. Dylan therefore deftly weaves these intertexts to construct a first person tale of a disaffected soldier, who variously reflects on issues such as loss, failed relationships and war. The lyrics continue:

I’m gonna spare the defeated- I’m gonna speak to the crowd
I’m gonna spare the defeated, boys I’m gonna speak to the crowd
I am goin’ to teach peace to the conquered
I’m gonna tame the proud
(Lonesome Day Blues)

Remember Roman, these will be your arts:
To teach the ways of peace to those you conquer,
To spare defeated peoples, tame the proud
Virgil (Aeneid, 6:851-853, trans. Mandelbaum)

Virgil’s lines are set in the Underworld, where the ghost of Anchises (Aeneas’s father) is instructing his son (and indeed future Romans) that they should firstly conquer in war and secondly establish a peaceful empire with just rule, giving conquered peoples the benefits of Roman civilisation (Volk, 2009:71; Williams, 1990:205). However, Thomas (2011:136) notes that an alternative view of this passage is that Virgil is, in fact, questioning the value of imperial conquest. Thomas considers that Dylan’s disaffected soldier is alluding to his own personal conflict regarding the Vietnam War, thus aligning the two contexts of Rome and America, and making a direct comment on the failed nature of imperial expansion. However, Thomas’s interpretation is speculative, and he may be crediting Dylan with a more intelligent and nuanced view than he actually has. On discussing teaching peace to the conquered and taming the proud, Dylan’s soldier may be generally reflecting on the contradictions of war, rather than any specific reference to the Vietnam War. Vague song lyrics are a feature of Dylan’s work, making them subject to individual interpretation, and imbuing them with a timeless quality. In this particular case, as with ‘Masters of War’, the lyrics may be relevant not just to the Vietnam War, but also to any future war.

Dylan and Ovid

A further example of Dylan’s use of intertextuality is in Ovid’s exile poetry Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto (Black Sea Letters). Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) (43BCE- 17CE) was the leading poet of Rome, who was banished by the emperor Augustus to Tomis on the Black Sea in 8 CE. His exile poetry details the sorrows of his life in exile, with poetic imagery of sickness and death (Hinds, 2012). Dylan’s 2006 album ‘Modern Times’ is peppered with at least nineteen intertextual vignettes involving Ovid’s exile poetry, of which these are a small selection:

Heart burnin’, still yearnin’/ In the last outback at the world’s end.
(Dylan, ‘Ain’t Talkin’’)

I’m in the last outback, at the world’s end.
(Ovid, Black Sea Letters, 2.7.66, trans. Green)

To lead me off in a cheerful dance.
(Dylan, ‘Workingman’s Blues #2’)

or Niobe, bereaved, lead off some cheerful dance.
(Ovid, Tristia, 5.12.8, trans. Green)

My cruel weapons have been put on shelf/ Come sit down on my knee/ You are dearer to me than myself/As you yourself can see.
(Dylan, ‘Workingman’s Blues #2’)

Show mercy, I beg you, shelve your cruel weapons/wife, dearer to me than myself, you yourself can see.
(Ovid, Tristia, 2.179 & 5.14.2, trans. Green)

Conclusion

To summarise, the literary establishment has now firmly established Bob Dylan’s credentials as a poet, rather than simply a lyricist. Thus, a significant body of his work, such as the song lyrics of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’, ‘Masters of War’ and ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’ can be considered works of poetry in their own right. However, it should be remembered that Dylan also establishes significant artistic power from his musicality, a point he himself has clearly emphasised. Dylan’s genius is such that he has remained relevant to society over the course of several generations, although whether he will experience the longevity of Homer and Sappho remains to be seen. The Nobel Committee did not specifically address the fact that Dylan draws upon and modifies the work of his predecessors. However, this is a feature of his work, and one which characterises a great poet. As Dylan is foremost a lyricist, his poetry must be simple and accessible to his listeners; his intertextuality subsequently lacks the complexity of Virgil and Ovid. However, he has developed his own personal style of intertextuality by continually incorporating intertext from varied textual genres within the same song. Dylan may therefore lack the brilliance of these literary greats, but his own unique style of intertextuality is nonetheless exciting and intelligent. Dylan’s intertextuality takes the form of a continuity of ideas, with the passing on of characteristics of the human condition, such as loss, alienation, and the disillusionment of war. This continuity of ideas streams seamlessly from the Classical world to the modern day, where he remains one of the greats of the musical world.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Ovid, Tristia and the Black Sea Letters, in Green, P. (trans.) (1994) The Poems of Exile, London, Penguin.
  • Virgil, Aeneid, in Mandelbaum, A. (trans.) (1972) The Aeneid of Virgil, London, Bantam Books.

Secondary scholarship

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Hello,

I’m Catherine

Welcome to my Classics blog. I am a recent MSc Classics and Ancient History graduate from the University of Glasgow and will be publishing posts on the ancient world. My main interests include Myth, Reception Studies and Numismatics. I also have a medical degree which brings a different perspective to topics around the ancient world.

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