Expecting Rain

The Burial of the Dead is full of quotations, some verbatim, from Dante

Thanks
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4673&p=1180244#p1180244

The final line of the poem is a sanskrit mantra from one of the Hindu upanishads. The direct and indirect sources in The Waste Land are too many to list, but include Shakespeare, Dante, the Bible, Chaucer and 'The Book of Common Prayer.'

Take Walt Whitman for a poet in the context.

I really appreciate MMD's comments, and I think they put Dylan's work into perspective. To me, he is in the same league as many other writes in creating new textual - and musical - effects through pastiche.
I also think, however, that people focusing so much on textual connections end up making the text autonomous from musical experience. While this is legitimate when we deal with Chronicles (I can disagree with the methods and the result, but I see the goal in doing this), it has very little sense when we consider the music, especially the songs from Love and Theft which are masterpieces of this way of composing.
I have written somewhere in another thread that the bias results from the perception of Dylan's authenticity as the result of his perceived originality. The two things should be kept apart, and I claim that Dylan is authentic - i.e. succeeds in creating the impression of authenticity - mainly because he has rejected the dream of romantic originality, according to which the artist has to be the only source of his creation. This is silly. Joni Mitchell pointed to this fact in her infamous interview, in which she gave evidence that she does not understand a damn thing about the way Dylan builds his songs.
Wilentz writes of a "deliberate anachronism" and others (can't remember whether it was Yaffe or Polito) of a "committee of muses". Both descriptions are apt, and especially Wilentz hints to (but does not develop fully IMO) the key to understand Dylan's recent work.

Dylan works in a dialogic way with the past, integrating it into his own contemporary compositions. It is a re-accentuation of another time - marked by musical memories other than the memory of Bob Dylan and his songs which is settled in the ordinary fan's view - which is outside the present. It is, to some respect, a renewal through the incorporation of lines and musical elements that force the listener to recognize the "pastness" involved in quotations and borrowings, and in this way it is effective in the creation of a dialogue with tradition.
The songs work at different levels, but there is a common thread and it is, more or less, a way to say "look, there is a past out there, and these songs can be a way to reach them".

Excellent posts, MMD and andrea75. Thank you both for contributing to a greater understanding and appreciation of Bob's art. I believe he expressed in an interview a few years ago, that people may not understand what he is doing for a hundred years (or something like that, I will see if I can find the quote.) The reducing of an artist's work to some kind of technical (or clinical?) deconstruction is a disservice to the artist and the listeners because a reaction to art, first and foremost, has to be a gut level or emotional recognition of it's worth.

MMD, great posts here. I can only speak for myself, but i don't deny that "there are
incorporated texts from other writers in Dylan's work" as you say. What i don't like is
the attempt to make what Bob does into a case against him for thievery and plagarism.

..People run Bob's works through search engines and then gleefully report on every
matching phrase which the machine turns up as though Bob should be slapped in handcuffs.

What may be interesting to some as an academic pursuit (tracking down Dylan's sources)
seems to have turned into a witchhunt...and as such, i have no interest in hearing another
word about "his sources". The bloggers seem more interested in pointing out their own
'cleverness' and in tearing down Dylan than in pursuing any academic interests.

I interpret your remarks to mean that some of Bob's writing falls under the heading of what
i would call "poetic license" rather than "theft"...and i would certainly agree with that.

Here is that link to the term paper analogy that you were talking about...i posted this last
summer in the "Chronicles" thread ..which also turned into a shoot-em-out.

@raging:
This?
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 952,904071

thanks JP, you are quick!

edit to add the quote:

"I don't think I'll be perceived properly till a hundred years after I'm gone," Dylan said.

I was going to say I put this through a search engine, but I won't.
Brainful of Dylan quotes....

The contemporary art world, which Dylan is familiar with (including references by him to artist friends) has moved far beyond concerns about ownership of imagery and is now a vast field of 'appropriation' in which some artists have made careers by reproducing or heavily referencing already-existing work by other artists.

Here's a website for artist Sherrie Levine, an artist whose work is almost exclusively about appropriation. In 1979, Levine rephotographed Walker Evan's depression era portraits of the Burroughs, a family of sharecroppers. Included is an interview with Levine in which she explains how she arrived at this series, titled "After Walker Evans."

http://www.AfterSherrieLevine.com/


One of the great early experiments in 20th century 'appropriation' of a text is a story by Jorge Luis Borges (one of the masters of 20th Century literature) titled "Pierre Menard: Author of the Quixote." Published in 1939, the story is a faux critical piece/false document in which the narrator discusses the work of the (fictional) author Pierre Menard, specifically Menard's attempt to completely immerse himself in Miguel Cervantes novel "Don Quixote" to the extent that he is able to produce a line-by-line recreation of parts of Cervantes novel.

The work by Menard which the narrator comments upon is word-for-word "Don Quixote" - or sections of "Don Quixote", exactly as written by Cervantes. The narrator judges Menard's "Quixote" to be more rich, subtle and creative than Cervantes work in light of the historical knowledge Menard possesses - unavailable to Cervantes in his time.

This story is a seminal work of modern fiction (and I feel sure Dylan is familiar with Borges). The story is the root of a school of modern literary criticism called "reader response" in which the person reading a story creates it's meaning through what the reader brings to the story (vs. the intentions of the author...). (Which means that the question of authorship is irrelevant to the meaning of the story). Almost all innovative modern/contemporary fiction writers have been beholden to this story, including Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Bolano, Thomas Pynchon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, William Gibson, Umberto Eco and Philip Roth.

Many major works of modern fiction are about the idea of 'ownership' of writing and 'context' which a reader or critic may supply to a work that makes the 'ownership' and 'intention' of the author irrelevant - or at least secondary to the response of the reader or critic.

The greatest writers of the 20th Century - and we can safely assume that Dylan knows their work well - addressed the ideas of ownership, appropriation, context, and author's intention in ways that subverted traditional ways of perceiving literature - James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, T.S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges.

It's almost impossible to discuss originality and appropriation in Dylan's work without familiarity with these writers because Dylan makes use of their themes and ideas. Dylan is as much a writer as he is a musician and it's as relevant to focus on modern literary influences in Dylan's work as it is to trace his musical influences back through blues, folk and roots music. And if you examine Dylan's work in that light, issues about copyright, ownership of language, and originality basically get pitched out the window. By the design of the writers who came before him and have influenced him.

Nice work by Death on Credit and MMD in discussing the same subject matter, which often involves heavy lifting.

@rev
Good post, but.... can we assume that Dylan knew all this when he started out as a songwriter? In other words, do you see a shift somewhere from what has been called folk process to a conscious working method of what you describe above, i.e. something similar to his shift in perspective that he's talked about re. writing Blood On The Tracks?

Your own search engine is working quite well

-------------------------------------------------

QAL, thanks for that article

Well said, Chrome Horse.

It's just wonderfully, wonderfully enriching learning about these things. While I agree about the gut level reaction to art raging_glory mentions, there are two sides to every coin, and those refusing to look at it might well miss out on a vast field of Dylanesque playfulness.



I plagiarized your post, Scott.

Twins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZhQpyr2 ... ata_player

Well, I'm pretty sure that many of us enjoy learning of Bob's sources, I think that is probably at least partly what he is wanting us to do. The problem is when the objective is to "discover" these sources and hold them up as examples of plagiarism or thievery. In some cases I believe it to be self-serving (look, I've caught him in the act! I have outsmarted the master!)

Exactly!...therein lies the problem.

I assume he knew a lot of it when he 'started out as a songwriter' by virtue of whatever he read as a child, teenager and young man. Dylan is easily sharp enough to have perceived these things in literature without needing to have a graduate degree in critical theory and he has been a lifelong avid reader. I don't think there's an identifiable shift in his work based on his understanding of literary devices because I assume these influences have accrued over a lifetime of reading which probably began in earnest in his childhood. Someone that deft with words and imagery in his early 20s had to have been aware of language used around him (and acquired through voluminous reading) from a very early age. You can tell a lot about how much someone has read just from their vocabulary. When he 'started out as a songwriter,' his vocabulary was impressive. Who knows when he picked up or figured out particular things? Somebody would have to be inside his head to know that - and no one is but Dylan. This kind of knowledge is acquired organically over a lifetime of reading widely, then rereading, then focusing on what you can pick up by doing this, and talking to people around you with the same interests. It's not like acquisition of knowledge is broken up into stages for someone like him. Every single thing he learned became synthesized into what he knew, which can basically be defined as his consciousness. Also remember, this is his job just as much as he reads for pleasure. All writers study each other, even when they're just relaxing. I think once people learn to read critically, it's hard to read purely for pleasure. (I'm sure many people would disagree but I'm firm about this). It's hard to ditch this awareness, once you have it.

I don't think I described any 'conscious working method' in my post and I don't know what 'folk process' means.

I feel like you're looking for some identifiable turning point where we can definitely pin down when a particular artist or movement or insight became important to him. I don't see how that would be possible. We would only have this information if he has talked to people about it. Being too literal is a trap here.

I know about the Norman Raeben interview. As I understand it, he taught by asking people to focus on perceptual honesty, as devoid as possible from any conceptualization, when learning to draw. I assume this means without any exaggeration or embellishment. My own feeling is that Dylan probably regrets having talked publicly about this in connection to writing BOTT. I've never found it to be especially revealing.

What he knows and works from, and always has, is an accretion of knowledge, perception and detail that begin with his first childhood experiences of the world. Everything just gets layered on, day after day after day. Looking for some specific "AHA!" influence that determined some big turn he took at various points in his career - I think creativity is too complex and subtle for people to be able to figure out how most artists do that. Maybe it can be done on a very superficial level.

Being an artist isn't a choice that Bob Dylan made in high school or when he arrived in Dinkytown. He always thought the way an artist thinks. You can learn to think more creatively but I don't think any outside influences will turn someone into an artist who wasn't already perceiving as an artist in their childhood. Nobody could 'teach' Dylan how to be an artist or how to have a 'working method.' Of necessity, he got there alone. Hence the tediousness of discussing his 'originality.'

As far as all the artists/writers I mentioned, I'm not claiming that if someone asked Dylan to explain the work of Nabokov that he could give you a critical exegesis of Nabokov. I don't have any idea of the extent to which Dylan thinks like that. Possibly he could. My emphasis is that he likely read these works and he figured all of these things out (issues of ownership, context, appropriation, etc) to the extent that he could make use of them, rather than to the extent that he could consciously explain them.

I thought the post by QAL in the book thread that links to Douglas Brinkley's interview with Dylan was revealing in terms of how impressive Dylan's formal knowledge seems to be, particularly Brinkley's thoughts on Dylan as someone aware of being an American artist who is interested in American art. But recall that he played England in 1966 with an American flag as a backdrop and claimed his music was "American music" - and was 25 years old at the time - so apparently he was hyperaware of wanting to have a place in that tradition even at 25.

Lastly, Dylan has often stayed at the Four Seasons hotel when he's in Washington. For decades, there has been a small bookstore next door to the Four Seasons - literally as you walk out of the door to the hotel - called Bridge Street Books. It's a tiny and very strange shop that (unless it has been sold) has always reflected the personal hobbyhorses of it's lifelong owner, which lean heavily toward Judaica, film, politics, cultural studies, history, literature and literary criticism. The store is so small you almost can't turn around in it. Sounds to me like Dylan has gone into that store every time he's stayed at the Four Seasons and from what I know about the books that Dylan has bought there - they would indicate that Dylan seems to have a vast and impressive curiosity and I wouldn't rule out Dylan being well versed about anything.

Although....he might have bought those books to be given as gifts, rather than to read them himself.

Johanna, as i have pointed out numerous times on ER...those phrases which you have highlighted
are not unusual in New Orleans and show ZERO evidence of theft. Pretty sure that Bethany Bultman
didn't coin any of those phrases.

It's a pain in the a$$, but i will keep pointing this out every time i see that Tour Guide book
used as an example of Dylan's thievery.

You know what...With the name of Bultman, Bethany Bultman must be a local !
I am going to get in touch with her and get to the bottom of this! Stay tuned, folks.

I also restate what I've said before, and I think QAL and raging_glory have probably mentioned this here. Being learned about all of these sources might make you more impressed with Dylan. Maybe that's been true for me to a little and I mean very little extent.

But it hasn't ever made me love his work more or be more excited about it or helped my understanding of it on a personal level. That's a gut thing and you don't need to know all of this stuff to be fully capable of really loving and understanding his work. The only person I believe who really gets a lot more from knowing all the sources and influences is Bob Dylan. Everyone else is always, always only guessing where it all springs from. He alone knows.

So to everybody, your guess is as good as mine any day.

QAL, I have not highlighted any of this, I copied the post as it stood. Did you read the other things mentioned outside the travel guide? Why are you so hostile about this? Does it diminish Bob's achievements to you that he quotes from others?

i refer you to your posts and the blogs.

Along with knowing about 20th century notions of appropriation, I'd bet Dylan is also acquainted with the tradition of borrowing within the Graeco-Roman canon. He was a member of his school's Latin Club after all and if there's one thing you learn when studying the Romans is that they stole everything from the Greeks!

I'm studying Classics at school and classicists are very familiar with literary allusions. Most of the major Roman poets used Greek literature as something of a crutch. They borrowed everything from plots to lines. The best known example is probably that of Vergil and his Aeneid. The first six books of the Aeneid are clearly modeled after the Odyssey and its last six after the Iliad. But Vergil also 'borrowed' other things from Homer, including structure and events. For example, the scene in which Venus presents Aeneas with his arms (don't remember the Book, probably 7/8) is very similar to the scene in which Thetis presents Achilles with new armor (Book 19). Or compare the raid of Odysseus and Diomedes (Iliad, Book 9) with that of Nisus and Euryalus (Aeneid, Book 10).

Vergil was actually accused of plagiarism for this and famously replied, "Why don't they try theft of this kind themselves? Because they will find out that it is more difficult to steal a line from Homer than his club from Herakles."

Vergil is just one example, several instances of Roman poets lifting from Vergil have been documented. And the Greeks themselves took from what had come before them.

Your questions insinuate that if only I were more well-read and intelligent then i would see the light.

You can read my previous posts for an answer to the question as to why i am so hostile
to scottw's and your undertakings. I have clearly explained my viewpoint on that more than
once and don't see the need to repeat it yet again.

However, i will answer this question by quoting from one of my previous posts:
Question: " Does it diminish Bob's achievements to you that he quotes from others?"

Answer: Let me say that there is no insinuation you can make about Dylan's originality or writing techniques
that will in any way diminish him in my eyes.
In fact, there is nothing that anyone could say about Dylan that would make me think less of him...got it?

Happy trolling, Joanna.

Queen Anne, are you really gonna try to look her up?