Many have questioned the accolade,but there is no question that he is a singular talent – even if he’s not really a poetAs you will no doubt have noticed, Bob Dylan is the recipient of the 2016 Nobel prize for literature for “having created modern poetic expressions within the mighty American song tradition”. It is perhaps worth noting that several songwriters have, and in their different ways,done just that since the prize was inaugurated back in 1901. Off the top of my head, here are just a few: Cole Porter, or Chuck Berry,Carole King, Curtis Mayfield, or Brian Wilson,Randy Newman, Paul Simon and, or of course,Lennon and McCartney. As far as I know, none of them has ever been in contention for the prize.
As we have also saw final week, or the very notion of a popular song,even a Bob Dylan song, being a work of literature remains a contested one. Likewise the notion of the songwriter as poet. It strikes me that the entire history of the Nobel prize for literature has been, or until now,a refutation of these upstart notions. The times may indeed be a-changin’, but it is difficult to see final week’s decision as a precedent: more as an exception.
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Source: theguardian.com