Dylan's Visions of Sin

by Christopher Ricks

Bob Dylan's ways with words are a wonder, matched as they are with his music and verified by those voices of his. In response to the whole range of Dylan early and late (his songs of social conscience, of earthly love, of divine love, and of contemplation), this critical appreciation listens to Dylan's attentive genius, alive in the very words and their rewards. "Fools they made a mock of sin." Dylan's is an art in which sins are laid bare (and resisted), virtues are valued (and manifested), and the graces brought home. The seven deadly sins, the four cardinal virtues (harder to remember?), and the three heavenly these make up everybody's world -- but Dylan's in particular. Or rather, his worlds, since human dealings of every kind are his for the artistic seizing. Pride is anatomized in "Like a Rolling Stone," Envy in "Positively 4th Street," Anger in "Only a Pawn in Their Game" ... But, hearteningly, Justice reclaims "Hattie Carroll," Fortitude "Blowin' in the Wind," Faith "Precious Angel," Hope "Forever Young," and Charity "Watered-Down Love." In The New Yorker , Alex Ross wrote that "Ricks's writing on Dylan is the best there is. Unlike most rock critics -- 'forty-year-olds talking to ten-year-olds,' Dylan has called them -- he writes for adults." In the Times (London), Bryan Appleyard maintained that "Ricks, one of the most distinguished literary critics of our time, is almost the only writer to have applied serious literary intelligence to Dylan ... " Dylan's countless listeners (and even the artist himself, who knows?) may agree with W.H. Auden that Ricks "is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding."

Genres: Music, Poetry, Nonfiction, Biography, Criticism, Literary Criticism, Cultural

517 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2004

About the author

Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA, is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (U.S.) and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (England) from 2004 to 2009. He is the immediate past-president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He is known as a champion of Victorian poetry; an enthusiast of Bob Dylan, whose lyrics he has analysed at book-length; a trenchant reviewer of writers he considers pretentious (Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Norris, Geoffrey Hartman, Stanley Fish); and a warm reviewer of those he thinks humane or humorous (F. R. Leavis, W. K. Wimsatt, Christina Stead). Hugh Kenner has praised his 'intent eloquence', and Geoffrey Hill his 'unrivalled critical intelligence'. W. H. Auden described Ricks as 'exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'.

Reviews

[Maria Tortuga · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't think Dylan is a poetic genius, read this book and see if you don't change your mind. Be warned, this is not a light read, this is an intense literary criticism of his poetry and showcases how Dylan embraces, masters and pushes the limit of American and European literary tradition. If you don't know the works or at least the styles of some of the writers and poets referenced in this book, I think it would be a tough read. However, by extrapolating Dylan's literary inspiration and realizing how he progresses from their foundations just highlights his incredible talent and insight.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

A noted literary scholar takes on Dylan’s songbook in a context of the Seven Deadly Sins, the Four Cardinal Virtues, and the Three Graces. Into the mix he throws the Bible (naturally), Milton, Dryden, Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson and others. Also into the mix are jumbled puns, word plays of various stripes and spots, Dylan-quoting both blind and paraphrased (don’t be reading this book if you can’t spot ‘em, Mr. Jones!) and cultural references wide and varied. In the end it is too much and too little. Too much dissecting of lines and words, too little analysis of overall worth and standing. The author seems to want us to presume he wouldn’t be wasting time if Dylan’s work wasn’t worth it so he doesn’t bother to make any kind of case for Dylan as a poet in an age when poetry has a landscape that needs to be defined before it’s populated. In the end, despite moments of fun and insight as he relentlessly wobbles from song to song (trees, trees, and no forest), you’re left with mixed up confusion written at a high level of allusion and a low level of interest. Better than Marcus’s new book but a thousand miles behind Dylan’s own Chronicles, Volume One.

[Mark Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

The problem with Dylan is that so many writers think they know exactly what he's talking about when, in truth, they have no idea. They roll off into the hinterlands on some pretentious journey parsing the words down to the smallest "is" or "of." This author has Dylan rictus. He has to find meaning in the most inconsequential of lines, such as his dissection of "Postively 4th Street" when he goes off on a jag about why "see you/be you" is some kind of genius. He's an idiot. Bob wrote those lines to set off one of the great pop music put downs, something that I laughed at and recognized even when I first heard it at the age of 10:

"I wish that for just one time you could step inside my shoes
And just for that one moment, I could be you.
Yeah, I wish that for just one time, you could step inside my shoes.
You'd know what a drag it is to see you."

The songwriter knows how this happens: You're rolling with the Muse and she's giving you nothing but good stuff. You don't stop to analyse whether "be you/see you" is any good. YOu don't say to yourself, "if I repeat that step inside my shoes line, it would really set it up." You just do it and let the critics say what they will.

The other annoying thing about this author is that he keeps slipping in clever references to other things while talking about the songs, as if free association of the critic had anything to do with Dylan's own brilliant use of the technique.

Keep this by your bed. I did. Whenever I couldn't sleep, I'd read a page. I napped beautifully afterward.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A useful thing to have on the shelf for those times when the Dylan itch strikes. Ricks is a serious scholar, and makes comparisons to poets that I haven't thought of of read in years, but his analysis is, it seems to me, pretty spot-on. I have no doubt that Dylan has some familiarity with Gerald Manley Hopkins, for example, and that his familiarity has influenced and informed his work as much as his familiarity with Buddy Holly. That's the point of Bob Dylan, isn't it? It takes a serious student of both T.S. Elliott and Chuck Berry to catch all the inferences, and Ricks is just the man for the job.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst ever book on Bob Dylan. Ricks, elsewhere, is a decent enough critic but here he completely embarrasses himself and us. The toe-curling wink-wink references to Dylan lyrics, the high-brow tone, the tortuous arguments all add up to a book not just worth throwing down but hurling across the room.

[Reuben Woolley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate this approach to literary analysis so much that I'm going to write a dissertation about it

[Niccy · Rating 3 out of 5]

this took me so long to finish because i, bob dylan lover, got sick of ricks banging on about bob dylan. initially recommended by nicholas the trinity librarian whilst he was patronising anne about in memoriam a.h.h, which should have been a big warning sign icl.

ricks does this annoying clever thing in this book where he tries and works in bob dylan lyrics into his analysis as like a wink-wink to those in the know, but it just comes off as pointless and insufferable and not funny, like a marvel cameo (“OMG that’s from ‘Desolation Row’ I know that song!!”). his poetic analysis is obviously clinical and voluminous but he does also push the boat out so far that you can’t see it on the horizon, which i dont mind but also at some points i don’t believe he believes what he’s saying about some random song from dylan’s christian albums.

i like the drawing-in of random other poems as “influence” just for the culture, even though some of the comparisons are tenuous. there you go, i’ve read it now: guess i’m a certified dylanologist. back to some fiction!!

[MF · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a Dylan fan, as I am, this book is both a treat and a revelation. I got an even deeper appreciation of the breath and depth of Bob's lyrical genius. The numerous allusions to the Bible and to poets such as Keats were amazing. With the variety and style of what are in effect poems, put to music, I simply couldn't imagine he does it. Christopher Ricks is a fellow fan of Dylan so he gives a warm and fair account of Dylan's rationale, that few critics can match. At times his writing style was a bit over the top but it is a well worth read and what you learn gives a great dividend in musical and lyrical appreciation.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great close-reading, the best of its kind I've read on pop music. He also avoids being academic-y, and he's playful with language in a fun way. It's a massive undertaking, though, and some of the selections seem a little forced into his schema.

Highlights: the section on rhyme, the reading of Larkin's "Love Songs in Age", "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," and "Like a Rolling Stone."

Well worth it, and more enjoyable than you'd expect.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was quite a let-down. Though it offers some amazingly close and insightful readings of various songs, its central thesis (tying Dylan's songs to the sins, virtues, and graces) is often strained, with the apparent point of the individual reading vying with the larger thesis. Furthermore, Ricks's writing suffers from the twin sins of excessive casualness (including a truly irritating number of non-sentences) and excessive cutesy referencing, mostly of Dylan lyrics. Aargh.

[Harrison Glaze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breathtakingly erudite and breathlessly chatty, a tour de force of both literary criticism and rock superfandom. Ricks’s sheer delight in language is palpable, which makes for some really scintillating close readings, a witty and relentlessly allusive style (if sometimes so relentless it begins to verge a bit on, if a jubilant, harangue), and a barrage of endearing-until-they’re-less-so Dylan puns. An odd book, but for the at all literarily minded Dylan fan indispensable.

[Lawrence A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, with both an academic gravitas and a whimsical flair, addressing the poetics in the songs of Bob Dylan, Dylan's obvious interest in the 7 deadly sins, the 4 virtues, and the 3 graces, as well as his obvious artistic debt to the Psalmists, the various authors of the Bible, T.S. Eliot, and Alfred Tennyson. Highly recommended.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a reference book for me, and thus will remain on my 'currently reading' list for a while. Ricks analysis of Dylan's poetry is highly academic, written for post-graduate English majors. I've read so much about Dylan though, that I find the need to dig deeper. This is very deep......

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

The conceit of this book is bull****. It is a real shame because a lot of the criticism here is good and a few bits are great. But the overall framing is too flimsy. It doesn’t hold up.

The premise is to associate lyrical analysis of Dylan’s songs with the seven deadly sins, four virtues, and three heavenly graces. Not a bad idea I suppose, but Rick’s associations of Dylan songs with the sins, virtues, or graces are too often tangential at best.

Not only that, he takes greed and covetousness and separates the two, and drops off gluttony. I am not sure Dylan has a particularly gluttonous song unless we lean on a number like “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” But how can you organize your whole book around the seven deadly sins and get them wrong? Then have the audacity to criticize the chapel at Stanford for including Love and Chastity in the Heavenly Graces?

But back to the real trouble. Even with this list of sins, the songs don’t fit nicely into these categories. As I think about it, he would have been better off grouping songs around Neil Gaiman’s Endless from The Sandman comics (Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction, and of course Dream). These anthropomorphized constructs fit more closely with Dylan’s themes… desire, despair, and dreams in particular. However, the whole idea of laying an external construct like this on top of Dylan’s work seems like an ineffective attempt to create an organizing architecture for exploring Dylan’s themes. I guess it leads to a cool book title, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, but it doesn’t make for much of a text.

However, the overarching structure unfortunately isn’t the only problem. Rick’s also has a baffling sense of what in Dylan’s oeuvre is worthy of close attention. For example, he elevates song lyrics like “Handy Dandy” to the same level as “Blind Willie McTell.” Really? These two songs don’t belong in the same universe. And they certainly don’t both belong in the same chapter on Envy. Envy? Really that is what you take away from the truth telling prophecy that indicts American history for its obsession with “power and greed and corruptible seed.?” Blind Willie McTell is a stone cold classic, and it is more about how we as humans find some solace in the face of the heaviness of history. Not about envy. In stark contrast, Hand Dandy, to quote a lyric from that song, is just sugar and candy.

But it isn’t just what he chooses, but also what he omits. How can any serious comprehensive analysis of Dylan’s work omit Tangled Up in Blue and Visions of Johana. These of course aren’t the only omissions, but probably the most egregious. Is it because they don’t fit neatly into Rick’s categories of sin or virtues? If that is the case, then that is another notch against his system.

With all of that said there are some really good bits. I particularly like the analysis of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” He seems to capture something in his deconstruction of those lyrics. Also his whole chapter on Fortitude is quite good. By close reading and listening, he unpacks unique insights into “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall,” “I Believe in You,” “Most of the Time,” and “Not Dark Yet.” But I think the best bits here are determined by the songs that I think are good or great songs, and these from the chapter on Fortitude are true classics.

I just wish this was a better more readable text.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a book for fans of Dylan so much as it is a book for students of poetry. You need to be a fan of Dylan, yes, but that is not nearly enough. To enjoy this book, you probably have to be a fan of classic poetry, very well versed in Dylan's lyrics, someone who has read the Bible and is aware of basic religious concepts, and a person who is interested in literary criticism. Which is to say that this book has a very limited audience.

Visions of Sin is not overly academic, but there are moments when it does seem a bit pretentious. The author constantly inserts Dylan quotations into the flow of the text (without quotation marks), and it's sort of a fun game at first (aha! Spotted you!) but it soon begins to seem over-the-top and self-indulgent. There are gems in this book, but you have to dig through all the rambling. If you don't have an interest in poetry in general, you'll quickly get bogged down, as he doesn't just analyze Dylan's lyrics, but verse from everyone from Milton and Dryden to Tennyson and Larkin. Usually he does this in the context of Dylan's writing, but sometimes I feel like he's just throwing in bits and pieces from old papers for the heck of it, even if it doesn't quite relate.

If you are looking for a good literary analysis of Dylan's songs, I would suggest Song and Dance Man instead.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive and sometimes comprehensible. The book is original in its approach, important in its thesis, interesting, and really, really long. Ricks provides what we didn't know we lacked: a psycho-social one-volume commentary on Dylan's views of justice and aberration, with literary context and evaluation. (I say this affectionately: I like Christopher Ricks shyly and enormously.)

If at times you suspect that Ricks was up late with Blonde on Blonde and growing far too earnest, I can tell you you're not alone; and if you begin to wonder if he was paid by the word, I have also wondered. If you have at times felt that you got the point and were done for the moment, I am right there with you.

The thing that I take away from this stylistically is that it's generally a mistake to try to be witty in the presence of a master, even (and this is saying a lot) if you're Christopher Ricks: I get that feeling when people try to be playful in their introductions to Wodehouse, for instance. Ricks is a good writer, and if he were writing about a less-good writer than Dylan, that would be charming. As it is, I felt often that he should lay his thesis at the feet of the reader and leave him to Dylan. The book is best when it becomes an Annotated Lyrics of rather than a second or third doctoral thesis.

Still, the insights are good, and sometimes challenging.

[Chuck McCabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a Dylan fan early enough to have lamented his electrification (but got over it), and since I also grew up on Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range just 30 miles from Bobbie Zimmerman's home, I've always felt a close afinity. Christopher Ricks is one of the presiding critics of poetry on today's literary scene, and in Visions he applies his enormous knowledge of English poetry and other literature to closely reasoned interpretations of maybe a dozen or so of Dylan's songs. As the title implies, Ricks finds a persistent concern with biblical themes in the songs, suggested both by the subjects and by imagery and frequent verbal allusions. If these readings are correct, Ricks has revealed a Dylan who had absorbed an astonishing amount of great literature as well as the Bible at a very young age. Don't know whether Dylan has commented on Ricks' interpretations.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dylan is a serious literary genius: confirmed, one too many warnings and a 1000 times removed. Ricks views Dylan's lyrics (and songs…Ricks makes the point that songs differ from poetry in that songs are poetry, music AND performance, a factor that often plays in Ricks analysis) through the lens of the seven deadly sings, four cardinal virtues and three heavenly graces.

Ricks is a serious literary critic and approaches Dylan as such. Ricks also loves Dylan's wordplay and plays with words in his analysis much as Dylan does. Pay attention--Ricks' vocabulary and grammar reflects and refracts fragments of Dylan's at almost every turn.

[James Fountain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bit of a long-winded read at times, but Ricks’ close analysis is both very interesting and highly entertaining at times. The final 100-200 pages feel especially long-winded, as 10-15 pages are devoted to 3-5 minutes of song. But he’s correct in his ultra-devotion to Dylan’s greatness, and he shows us that like the top-level scholar that he is. The book does at times read like a PhD thesis - but that really is the idea: to press home the point that Dylan is a poet and literary genius whose borrowings from great poets such as Tennyson, Keats and Shakespeare are thoroughly intentional, and that he belongs in the canon with them.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

read the first chapter and here's what I learned: sometimes Dylan uses rhyming schemes, sometimes he doesn't. Seriously! And poorly written to boot. Ricks writes like some eager 16 year-old giddy with allusions, quotations, and the two lit-crit essays he just read in English class trying to flesh-out a music review for the school paper. If he has anything to say here, Ricks needs a bevy of editors to force him to find an argument and stick with it. Not sure I can continue if the writing remains this poor.

[Jay Daze · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a long time to read this one. It's very dense with close readings of individual songs and it will really, really help if you can listen to the songs as you go. When I didn't have the song, I found I just drifted a bit into abstraction not having the actually work to compare to Ricks' masterful readings. My favourite section was on Dylan's "Moonlight" with its links to Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale", made me want to search out Keats!

[Eric Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rick's explanations can be a bit to close as far as close readings go, but he does add some interesting insights into some of the songs, and while the organizing premise of the book -- the seven deadly sins, the four virtues (or whatever) seems a bit forced, as a sort of piecemeal read (what does he say about this song) its fun.

[Dovofthegalilee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this volume a five star review not because I liked so much but because it is a sheer tome of deep thought in manys that few people could ever do. It certainly reads like a grad's student's thesis maybe it even was for all I know. It's intense and best enjoyed with listening to each song that he describes as you go through.

[Ryon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was perhaps a little much for my taste. Ricks' writing of how Dylan's songs reflect the sins/graces/virtues was interesting but at times I got bored reading at how the actual structure and rhyming scheme of the song worked.

[Summer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey, I liked it. It's no masterpiece but I can get pretty excited about really serious rocksnobbery. It's fun to read while listening to Dylan and it did contain a lot of insight that hadn't occured to me before.

[Anastasia Herbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the way literary criticism ought to be written. Rick's exploration of Dylan's lyrics - as full-blown poetry - slips seamlessly between citation, gloss, and commentary. If this book does not, finally, establish Dylan as one of the foremost poets of our time, none will.

[Simon Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who still doubts that Dylan is not a major 20th century literary figure should read this book by Christopher Ricks, Professor of Poetry at Oxford. After all it was Allen Ginsberg who said that Dylan was the most important poet of the second half of the twentieth century

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holy smokes. I really wanted to like this book but I'm now convinced this guy just wrote it to cram its 500-odd pages with Dylan puns. I found it genuinely frustrating to find the points that Ricks was trying to make amidst the conversational, joke-filled meandering.

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book. So well researched, such complicated references to previous writers. The one complaint I have it in Ricks's highlighting of coincidences and his asides that often point to his in depth knowledge without actually adding much to the book.

[Gabriel Rojo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delight. Not so much about sin as about the virtue and decency inherent in the songs. The author does overanalyze a little, but always with joy, humility and a gift for words. Helped me sort out through my Dylan collection and find new wonders within it.