Timothy Hampton

(University of California, Berkeley)

Bob Dylan Between Poetry and Song 

As winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, Bob Dylan has been elevated beyond the field of popular music into a larger pantheon of literary creativity. However, despite his success, very few accounts of his art have looked closely at how his songs work – at the literary techniques deployed, at his use of literary and musical genres, or at the intersection of verse and musical form. In this lecture I will discuss Dylan’s construction of his literary authority and the ways in which verse and music intertwine. A general approach to Dylan’s work will be sketched out, and close analysis of several of his most famous songs will be presented for discussion.

Vortrag in englischer Sprache