Why Bob Dylan Matters

by Richard F. Thomas

“The coolest class on campus” – The New York Times

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice.  How could the world’s most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn’t even deign to attend the medal ceremony?

In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. Dylan’s Nobel Prize brought him vindication, and he immediately found himself thrust into the spotlight as a leading academic voice in all matters Dylanological. Today, through his wildly popular Dylan seminar—affectionately dubbed "Dylan 101"—Thomas is introducing a new generation of fans and scholars to the revered bard’s work.

This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas’s famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets. Asking us to reflect on the question, "What makes a classic?", Thomas offers an eloquent argument for Dylan’s modern relevance, while interpreting and decoding Dylan’s lyrics for readers. The most original and compelling volume on Dylan in decades, Why Bob Dylan Matters will illuminate Dylan’s work for the Dylan neophyte and the seasoned fanatic alike. You’ll never think about Bob Dylan in the same way again.

 

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Poetry, History, Literary Criticism, Biography Memoir

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 21, 2017

About the author

Richard F. Thomas is George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. His teaching and research interests are focused on Hellenistic Greek and Roman literature (chiefly Callimachus, Theocritus, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Tacitus), intertextuality, translation and translation theory, the reception of classical literature, and the works of Bob Dylan. Publications include more than 100 articles and reviews and the following books: Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical Tradition (1982), Reading Virgil and his Texts. Studies in Intertextuality (1999), Virgil and the Augustan Reception (2001), Why Bob Dylan Matters (2017); commentaries on Virgil, Georgics (1988) and Horace, Odes 4 and Carmen Saeculare (2011). He has co-edited and contributed to Classics and the Uses of Reception (2006), Bob Dylan’s Performance ArtistryVirgil Encyclopedia (2014).

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

'I've been sitting down studying the art of love | I think it will fit me like a glove.' (Thunder on the Mountain)

The only Art of Love I knew was the three-book poem of Roman poet Ovid, a playful early work, a 'how-to' for those looking to get and keep a romantic partner. But Modern Times didn't seem to have much to do with that poem, but rather, if anything, with the last poems Ovid wrote.

This extract epitomises what I both liked about this book and yet also highlights its weaknesses: on one hand Thomas takes Dylan seriously as a lyricist and argues that there's no necessary distinction between poetry and song lyric: after all, as he points out, ancient and classical poetry was often sung rather than merely read, and Orpheus, the model of the poet as vates, was famous for his singing to a lyre accompaniment. That accepted, reading Dylan's lyrics intertextually makes perfect sense and that's what Thomas claims to be doing.

The problem, though, is that rather than reading or analysing intertexts, Thomas merely identifies them, and sometimes those identifications are very loose. In the example above, he claims Ovid's Ars Amatoria from Dylan's direct reference but then jumps to his Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto instead; and the only real analysis is the rather vague claim that Dylan adopts the mask of nostalgic exile from Ovid. Oh, but then Thomas claims that Dylan also takes similar tropes from Homer's Odysseus, and the Beat poets, and perhaps Dante exiled from Florence...

The blurb focuses on Dylan's classicism, but actually the book touches on all kinds of other literary influences: Shakespeare, Thomas Campion, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Plutarch. As already noted, though, Thomas notes them in passing, doesn't analyse what they might be doing in, and for, Dylan's lyrics.

There are places where he even undermines his own tentative arguments: 'Dylan did not need Ovid in order to bring out the nostalgia of remembering; indeed most of these instances above are from songs written before he read Green's 1994 translation. But in Ovid he found a kindred spirit.' It's simply not enough to state, for example, that both Dylan and Catullus took their greatest inspiration from unhappy love - it's no doubt true, but that doesn't mean that Dylan was influenced by Catullus, and there are many, many poets and poems that equally articulate the sufferings of love.

For all my disappointment in the scholarly aspects of the book (and it's clear to see why this hasn't been published by an academic press) I really enjoyed reading it - Thomas' sensitivity to Dylan and his lyrics comes through strongly, and his sharing of his love and knowledge makes this addictively readable. As a mere Dylan neophyte I learned a huge amount and, perhaps most importantly, it sent me back to Dylan's music. I just think the blurb makes it sound like a different book from what it actually is.

[jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a mega fan of Dylan and teacher of his music philosophy. I’ve been a Dylan fan since high school and never really paid any mind to his lyrics. This book was a great, almost scientific, account of Dylan’s lyrics, what they’re based on, the truths and impressions behind them and how they reflected the times which Dylan represents. In essence, Dylan’s work is further testament that history repeats itself. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Dylan, as a famous icon, did not enjoy fame like other icons do. He is an artist through and through and I think that’s part of what makes his music and lyrics so influential.

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/167583...

Of all the many books regarding the life and work of Bob Dylan this one ranks at the top when it comes to being scholarly. Part of a long-standing Harvard class taught by Thomas, this distillation dissects no few examples of Dylan’s now-classic role in producing great works by stealing from others. More importantly, however, Bob Dylan makes what he steals his own. No small task and something only a very few distinctive artists can pull of successfully. But the great ones in fact do exactly that. What interests me most is Dylan’s process of creation based on the studies, experience, and knowledge of the professor’s obsession with great Classic art. It is no stretch to state that Dylan is one of the best in the business and well-deserving of his 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.

[Michelle Curie · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, it felt like everybody had an opinion on it. From bloggers to literary critics - all of a sudden verdicts on Dylan's literary weight were given everywhere. Amongst those who defended this artistry was Richard F. Thomas, Harvard classics professor and teacher of a course on Dylan. In Why Dylan Matters he makes an argument for why he belongs in the pantheon of classical poets.



I didn't grow up with Bob Dylan's music. When I became a conscious listener of music, Dylan had already been around for decades. To me, he had always been who he is now: a legend. And still, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize, I did see why some people didn't feel like he belonged in the pantheon alongside Faulkner and Hemingway, which was why I was interested in hearing an educated opinion.

I should have expected it, but this was a way more analytical argument than I was hoping for. Thomas is both an academic and a fan, which makes his writing educated, I wasn't quite able to feel compelled or engaged by the points he was making. In his essays he points out similarities to Virgil, Ovid and Homer and draws comparisons by saying that both, the ancients and Dylan, explore the essential question of what it means to be human.

"He is part of that classical stream whose spring starts out in Greece and Rome and flows on down through the years, remaining relevant today, and incapable of being contained by time and place."



A question that I found compelling was who gets to define what great literature actually is. Is it only something that gets written down, something that is valued by literate societies, taught in schools or preserved in libraries? Isn't music, and Dylan's music respectively, something that human communities need just as much and don't they convey the same things?

Having all of that said, for somebody who is more of a casual listener of Dylan's musical repertoire than a passionate fan, this was a bit too lengthy. A mere essay would have probably satisfied my curiosity and it's therefore a book that I would only recommend to people with prior knowledge of (and enthusiasm for) Bob Dylan's art and history.

[Victoria Vulaj]

I had a random Dylan hyper fixation since listening to his music for the first time in class last winter, so loved this book connecting his lyrics to literature. Dylan’s Roman Empire really was the Roman Empire which is wild. Really cool book, picked out a few quotes:

- “But the lyrics of Catallus and of Dylan mostly share a focus on love that is lost, that doesn’t work out - that’s where the poetry is.”
- “…Dylan has a free hand, turning the Village into a carnivalesque museum, capturing that moment when the fifties turned into the sixties and the Beats gave way to folksingers.”
- “This is a new form of intertextuality, no longer verbal or reusing specific phrasing, but more aesthetically tuned and almost spiritual.”
- “Every classic starts out as popular…”

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Dylan Matters is undoubtedly very erudite and it has its interesting facets, but I do have my doubts about the thrust of it.

Richard Thomas is a classicist and Dylan fan who really knows his stuff about both. In this series of essays, he analyses both the content and social impact of Dylan's music often (but not exclusively) with reference to its parallels with classical texts by people like Virgil, Cicero, Ovid and so on. It's interesting for a while, but I have to say that I got a little bogged down in it, especially as I felt that some of what was being said was a bit tenuous. It felt at times like the converse of one of those sort of "Virgil's Relevance Today" seminars; yes, we know that some central themes recur throughout literature and remain true through ages, but that doesn't necessarily make Dylan directly comparable to Virgil, even if some of the writings of each has echoes of the other.

I have only a reasonable general knowledge of Classics and am a Dylan fan rather than an expert, so I may not be qualified to judge, but my sense is that Dylan's lyrics are often so brilliantly out of the ordinary that it's almost impossible to pin them down with any exactitude. This, to me, is much of their greatness, in that they convey and evoke profound ideas and feelings in a very oblique way. Given this, I think it would be possible for someone in all sorts of disciplines to draw parallels; if a particle physicist claimed that the last verse of All Along The Watchtower discusses quantum indeterminacy, for example, or an economist said that It's All Over Now, Baby Blue is actually analysing the causes of recession, it would be hard to refute them completely. I exaggerate, of course, but I did feel that there is more than a hint here of a classicist imposing his own discipline on the songs rather than allowing the songs to develop their own meaning.

These reservations aside, I did find the essays readable and quite enjoyable if I took them one at a time. There is enough here to interest a Dylan fan, but I can only give Why Dylan Matters a qualified recommendation.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Micheal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was a little disappointed with this. I agree with the author that Dylan matters and deserved his Nobel prize, but I am not sure that this author presented enough detail to convince those who are asking themselves whether Dylan matters. I learnt some things from this but not enough to rate it more than 3 stars.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first sixty or so pages - biographical in nature - and the last chapter, detailing his Nobel Prize in Literature win, were of the most interest. (Actually, that last chapter is excellent and a fitting conclusion.) The middle part of the book is a longer, slower scholarly section - Captain Obvious knows the author is a Harvard prof, thanks - with much lyrical comparison to Roman / Greek poets and what seemed to be a concentration on Dylan's output only in the last twenty years. My interest waned several times because of that focus, but not because it wasn't well written.

I guess I'm more of a fair-weather Dylan fan -- I enjoy and am most familiar with his legendary 60's to mid-70's songs / albums, and was hoping there'd be some interesting takes or facts on some of those tunes, but they seemed to be relatively minor part of this book's content.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously, in the annals of popular music, the work of Bob Dylan matters. To make sense of the title and related objective of this book (which might otherwise seem presumptuous and demeaning) one has to know a little about some recent history of the politics of the Nobel Prize for Literature. (No, not the internal scandal that delayed the issuance of the 2018 Prize to 2019.) In 2016, an American hadn’t won since 1993 (Toni Morrison,) and given the relative volume of publications from America this was coming to be seen as a major “screw you” to the nation’s literary community. The Nobel committee claimed it was because American authors didn’t get their works translated and were too insular with respect to the global literary community. Still, the disparity was on the minds of many. Then, Bob Dylan was issued the Prize. While some who were offended by this disparity were placated, many thought it was an even bigger “screw you” than if the Committee again hadn’t issued it to an American – like it was a “you asked for it, you got it; now shut up for at least the next 15 years!” kind of award. I doubt anyone would deny that, as a pop music lyricist, Bob Dylan is brilliant – if not the best -- but for many that still just made him a middling poet. (Dylan wrote one piece of prose poetry, “Tarantula” as well as “memoirs” [that were apparently largely an act of creative writing,] but only his lyrics could feasibly merit issue of the award.)

It was with that mess in mind that Thomas delivers this book. It seems to be his objective to not just prove that Dylan matters -- generally speaking -- but that Dylan’s work matters as literature – presumably, such that he’s at least as deserving of the Nobel Prize as any living American poet, story-writer, or novelist. The thrust of Thomas’s approach is in showing that Dylan’s work is dialed into the global literary canon. As a classicist, Thomas puts particular emphasis on Dylan’s stealing from, and referencing of, Greek and Roman figures like Homer and Ovid. (I mean "stealing" only in the sense that word used by artists, and there is considerable discussion of that subject, herein.) However, he does also show how Dylan uses and references other poets from Shakespeare to an obscure Confederate poet.

So, the logical question is whether Thomas answers his book’s titular question with enough authority to convince the reader that Dylan does matter. Thomas certainly convinces us why Dylan matters enough to have classes taught about him, like the one Thomas teaches a Harvard. However, I can’t say that I was convinced that Dylan is on-par with… for instance, Cormac McCarthy or Salman Rushdie (who resides in the US, as I understand it) as a major literary figure. While Thomas does show that Dylan’s work is literature because Dylan’s work is wrapped up in literature, the only real argument he offers for whether Dylan is at the highest echelon of literature is his intense fan-boy devotion. We see a lot of comments like: “He had all that he needed to write ‘Masters of War,’ the greatest anti-war song ever written.” Not “one of the best,” not “the best, in my opinion,” not “the best rock-n-roll anti-war song,” but a gratuitous presumption that nothing else could be considered in the running enough for there to be a debate. Thomas’s enthusiasm that Dylan is among the biggest artistic geniuses of our time – if not all time – is certainly potent, but not necessarily compelling.

The book is annotated, has a bibliography and a graphic discography.

I enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about the works of Bob Dylan and I found the author’s fervor for Dylan’s songs contagious -- if not altogether convincing that it merits Dylan’s inclusion with Hemingway and Faulkner as an American literary icon. [Though I would not in the least challenge his inclusion as an icon of folk, rock, or pop music.] If you’re interested in Dylan, or this question of whether he’s the best American for the job of Literary Nobel Laureate, this book is worth a read.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why Bob Dylan Matters is an important, but flawed "study" of Dylan and his lyrics. Given the relative shortness of the book (358 pages, notes and all), and the length of Dylan's career, that would seem, on surface, to be impossible. But Harvard Classics Professor Richard Thomas, a Dylan enthusiast who has been teaching a class on Dylan since 2004, has applied his academic eye and ear to Dylan's lyrics, and has made some fascinating discoveries. The trigger appears to lie in the discovery that Dylan (as young Bob Zimmerman) took Latin in high school. Back in the 50s, there was nothing unusual in that, since Latin was by far the language most taught in schools. You might call it conventional. Young Bob Zimmerman liked it well enough to also be a member of the Latin Club for a few years. Thomas does a great job of providing a foundation for the importance of Dylan's high school learning in the preceding pages when he writes about how Dylan, upon receiving the gold medal for his Nobel, spending considerable time studying the medal, with its Muse and Lyre scene from the Aeneid. Thomas knows an artistic circle when he sees one.

What follows are a number of song examinations and comparisons with Classic poets (Homer, Virgil, Catullus, Ovid) with, to my mind, concrete examples of where Dylan has used lines or themes from these poets to construct his own songs. Thomas calls these examples "intertexts" (haters will call it plagiarism). I have no problem with how Dylan constructs his songs, since there's little doubt in my mind that was he has constructed is new. The echoes, the fragments, etc, if discovered, just add to the richness of the song. T.S. Eliot would have approved. One example that kind of blew me away was the fairly recent "I Pay in Blood," from the Tempest album. That song, with its "I pay in blood, but not my own" line has puzzled me, but Thomas points to Homer, and Odysseys' bloody return home. Whoa! Bar the gates and bring me my bow. That song is frequently on Dylan's recent setlists.

There are many such revelatory moments in Why Bob Dylan Matters, that I now have a long list of songs and albums to revisit. That said, around chapter 8 Thomas seems to slip into full Bob Love. The concerts are always "perfect," the singing is always "beautiful," every setlist, every gesture, every interview utterance, is pregnant with meaning. A little bit of this kind of adulation can go a long way, and Thomas gives you way more than a little. I will grant that Dylan's singing on the American standards albums (Triplicate) is definitely better than the alarming croaking on Tempest, but I attribute that change to either surgery and/or tossing the smokes. Still, Bob Love aside, Thomas makes a strong case for Dylan being a Classic (and a very well read one). If you thought Dylan was a genius before, Why Bob Dylan Matters just adds to the legend.

[Zak · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Enjoyed this but was more classicsy than I thought, Richard is a classicist so I suppose I can't really hold that against him.

I most appreciated him talking about his own love of Dylan, and why he should be considered a living classic.

[Wade Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, although I don't need an explanation of why Bob matters. It took me a while to get into it, because the author spent a while trying to make a connection between Bob and classical Roman and Greek writers. The case didn't feel particularly strong. I enjoyed the author's analysis of Dylan's songs, however, particularly Dylan's later works.

[Mishehu · Rating 1 out of 5]

WBDM is an excruciatingly dull book. Thomas may be a fine classicist (I have no idea) but he's a tepid music critic. I've always known that Dylan matters but had hoped this book would challenge me to consider his significance anew. I'll grant this: having read WBDM, I now know more about Dylan's varied sources of inspiration, and about the impressive reading list he's amassed throughout his life, including classical literature. But so what? How Dylan arrived at a particular set of lyrics may be exciting to super-fans of his, and to Dylanologists. But Dylan's creative process isn't why he matters, and nearly the entirety of this book meditates solely on that process. I don't know Dylan one whit better for having read WBDM, and I doubt the author does either for having written it. Though I'm sure writing it was a labor of love, the results could not be less compelling. WBDM reads like a very over-long lit crit essay by a precocious high school student. I couldn't wait to be done with it.

[Dbaguti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, he answered, just because

[Robert Strandquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did it. It answered all my questions about Dylan as well as others I didn’t know to ask. It's an amazing book even though the title assumes its own answer. But my most recent question is ‘why was Bob Dylan selected as the 2016 Nobel Prize recipient for Literature?’ When the award was announced to the world, I immediately recalled the most recent American recipient, 23 overdue years ago, Toni Morrison back in 1993. Then, I thought of the first American recipient, Minnesota’s own Sinclair Lewis in1930, both esteemed novelists. Now MN has 2 and one is a poet! To his own surprise, Bob said that he had never thought his song lyrics were ‘literature,’ “but neither did Shakespeare,” he said. Dylan said, “both of us were too busy with more mundane matters about how to begin a song or a play; which musicians or actors would be best for this one?” But, the Nobel Committee declared that his writings “created new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition.”
Tracing the truth and veracity of this claim is author Dr. Richard Thomas, a Harvard professor of Classical Literature. He’s a die-hard Dylan fan who has attended concerts here and abroad for decades. He even offers a Dylan course of study every other year to Harvard freshmen. This text is a condensing of those lectures. In this book he offers multiple, convincing answers to the title’s implied question filling not only the 323 pages of text but also includes nearly 100 footnotes (endnotes) regarding specific quotes, as well as a 50-source bibliography followed by 5 pages of citations for lyrics quoted from Dylan’s 38 albums. Plus, at the end, there’s a 17 page-long Index of references and cross-references. Holy Cow! Obviously, Thomas knows how to create and fulfill a thesis.
Thomas’ book is worth reading only if you wonder why Dylan has been so revered throughout the past 6 decades. There’s more to him than meets the ear.

[Claudi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although Thomas is an engaging and erudite author, I’m just not sure if I’m enough of a Dylan fan.

[SJ L · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is particularly focused on the word and concept “intertextuality,” which means poets borrow and refer to other poets. He also dives deep into some albums I haven’t quite explored. Still, it was a good read on Dylan. I learned that people study Dylan academically (hell yeah) and a lot about Dylan’s classical roots.
I felt validated that others agree he is worthy of the Nobel Prize. Dylan’s poetry is magic, mysterious, and deep. Because, when you think about it, he’s the most popular musician with this bad of a voice. It’s not the music, it’s not the voice, it’s not the live performances that define his brilliance and staying power, it’s the lyrics. To be a lyricist first, guitar player second, puts Dylan in a rare category. No other musician is anywhere near him lyrically.
Another aspect that makes Dylan unique is that his lyrics are not usually very direct. They are full of allusions to other artists, a mixture of events, never direct and simple. Cerebral might be a word that fits, mystical might be another, but when you try to condense an understanding of art into words, you fall short.
A good book, but a bit academic for my liking. You can study something to the point where you understand it less. Context is good, but I prefer to explore and appreciate the art. This book helped, but I will learn more looking at the lyrics and listening to the poet, the artist, the man himself.

Quotes
Things had already changed at Newport the previous year, when Dylan played new, still-unreleased songs “In Ain’t Me Babe” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the latter showing how astonishingly complex and poetic his language and song had become. The lyrics of “It Ain’t Me Babe” almost seemed to be directed to fans who had come expecting a repeat of “Blowing in the Wind” from the year before. 22
It is through song that we can give depth to the sentiments for which mere speech is at times insufficient…Roman critics had a saying, “the art of poetry is to not say everything.” That is precisely what Dylan’s refrain does, indeed what much of Dylan’s art does; it implants the possible answer is our imaginations, and the rest is up to us. 25
There is no denying that with Blood on the Tracks, the art and the beauty seem to come more from a sense of hurt and loss, and seldom is experience not an ingredient of art, as Dylan himself has said. 30
But the fact is that in 1975, when Dylan put out Blood on the Tracks, the world changed for those who cared about his music, maybe in part because of the sublimation of life experience into art, which is the essence of the album. Gone for now was…the white picket fence that New Morning had tried to build around Bob and Sara Dylan and their four children, against the odds. 32
Much of the album [Blood on the Tracks] focuses on nighttime, the time of day when the relationships in its songs seem to fall apart, perhaps also the case with Dylan’s real-life relationships. 34
“You can change your name / but you can’t run away from yourself.” -Dylan 46
For the youth of America, rock and roll was generational; it belonged to them. [I’ve made this point about emo in my own youth, it belonged to us and spoke to us and was hated by our parents]. 58
Dylan’s separation from Suze Rotolo gave us some of his greatest songs, written while they were apart: Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Tomorrow is a Long Time, One Too Many Mornings, Girl of the North Country, and of course, Boots of Spanish Leather. 67
“If you told the truth that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well that’s still well and good. Folk songs taught me that.” It is an important moment in the book, where Dylan admits that the boundary between truth and untruth in his mind, and in his art, is indistinct. 111
[Dylan on seeing Buddy Holly two days before Holly’s death, Dylan was 17] “Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.” 120
‘The thing about it is there is the old and the new, and you have to connect with them both. The old goes out and the new comes in, but there is no sharp borderline. The old is still happening while the new enters the scene, sometimes unnoticed. The new is overlapping at the same time the old is weakening its hold. It goes on and on like that. Forever though the centuries. 126
“Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain.” -Dylan 187

[Zack Clemmons · Rating 2 out of 5]

As this one was given me by a respected mentor, and the biggest Dylan fan I know, I saw it through to the end. I didn't particularly want to. The premise is promising--professor of classics situates Dylan in the tradition of Golden Age poets (Ovid and Virgil and Horace and the like). The execution disappoints, to say the least. Discursive, obscurely organized, loosely argued, prone to bloviation--it's like listening to someone smart but not all that rhetorically gifted try (for 300+ pages) to explain a concept you don't really care about. Which is a shame, because I do care. Dylan is a phenomenon, one that seems too big to really get my head around, and I do think situating him in the long stream of bardic poets is worthwhile. I'm interested in Dylan's art, and what one should draw from it, what it says about American culture (and is part of the answer to the question of whether America has a culture at all). I'm not interested, though, in parsing every details of one Robert Zimmerman's life, looking for pieces to a needless puzzle. And Thomas, a big, big Dylan fan, let me tell you, really seems to want to convince everyone that his idol also loves the things he loves. ("Bob Dylan belonged to his high school Latin club for at least a year! And he probably saw these movies about Rome!")

I did appreciate how this book introduced me to the importance of performance to Dylan's career, since I've mostly been exposed through recordings, and have kind of always assumed recordings are the artifacts artists actually want to be remembered for. And occasionally (very occasionally) I caught a vibe of Thomas' passion, and shared it for a paragraph or two.

That said, I also read the word "intertextuality" about 150 too many times.

[Jim Vander Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything He Could Steal

Richard T. Thomas book, Why Dylan Matters gives valuable insights into Bob Dylan’s art. Thomas is a professor of the classics at Harvard and explains Dylan’s relationship to Greek and Roman poets such as Ovid, Virgil and Homer. He defends the charges of plagiarism Dylan has faced throughout the years. Thomas gives us the perspective the of literary tradition of borrowing lines to produce new meaning from the creative use of existing texts. Known as intertextuality it is used in all types of art. The best quote comes from TS Elliot who said: “Good poets borrow and great poets steal”. This book is a must for Dylan fans and would be valuable for those who wonder why he won the Nobel Prize.

I am a lifelong Dylan fan and sometimes find it hard to explain why. I have especially loved his work since Time Out of Mind. My favorite album is Love and Theft. Not sure if there is an original line on there but somehow it all works. The most impressive Dylan performance of the shows I have gone to was his rendition of Working Man Blues about five years ago in Kalamazoo. The author explains how some of the text from Ovid’s exile poetry is mixed in with his own creativity to create the feeling of the song. It is a song that Dylan seems to love. He was center stage and barked out every line from the bottom of his heart. You could tell this song meant a lot to him. I tell you so it must be so.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Dylan matters. Don’t go into this expecting a comprehensive history of Bob, Richard F. Thomas comes off more like an impassioned fan than a historian (and that’s a good thing!). Thomas (a professor of literature and classical poetry) spends a lot of this book connecting Bob to his own area of expertise, poets like Homer, Ovid, and Virgil, particularly in relation to Bob’s late career masterpieces from Time Out of Mind to Tempest. As a big fan of Bob’s later works, I loved seeing them get the praise they deserve and I was fascinated by Thomas’s analysis of Bob’s intertextual use of quotes from these poets in his songs (the breakdown of all the “thefts” in “Trying to Get to Heaven” was particularly mind blowing to me and gave me a new layer of appreciation for the song!).

You could argue he’s kind of stretching to make connections at times (he spends a lot of time discussing how Bob’s experience in high school Latin club could have influenced him, which like, sure, I guess?), but that’s the beauty of Bob Dylan’s work to me. The man himself will never give us a straight answer, so people like Thomas and all of us can read into whatever we want and dig up endless connections, which I think is a lot of fun. So while this may not be an all encompassing analysis of Bob’s work, it’s still a very interesting piece of Dylanology, especially for fans of Bob’s later works.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard F. Thomas, George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, dylanologist and the creator of a course at Harvard on Bob Dylan, gives us an incredibly erudite analysis of Dylan's poetic genius and a thorough back-to-back with authors to the likes of Virgil, Homer and Ovid.
Dylan's life-long obsession with Ancient Rome ("Going back to Rome / That's where I was born"), the transfiguration of himself into some other spirits belonging to other eras (Odysseus?) and the use of the intertextuality among other techniques, bring his magistral way of playing with words and nostalgia to a level beyond the question "Is this literature?" that was on everybody's mouth at the news of his winning of the highest prize for Literature, the Nobel in 2016.
He's a master of songwriting and that's a fact, and, as mentioned above, he's a master of intertextuality, of borrowing, readapting, stealing, recreating and giving new life to words and melodies of the past, words known and words forgotten and now brought back to life. He's not a plagiarist, everything he takes he wants us to know from where.
As T.S. Eliot said “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

I have to admit I am a huge fan of Dylan's oeuvre, and definitely I had my reasons to believe Dylan mattered immensely even before the Nobel or before reading this book, but I have learnt a lot more about him and I would have surely enjoyed this long length essay even as a non-fan.

I have also rediscovered curiosity towards some of the classic poets and I'm about to read Catullus and Rimbaud for the first time after more than a decade.

[Floyd Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book written by a Harvard University classicist, who traces Bob Dylan's master works to classic Roman poets and other historical literary figures. I have been a Dylan fan since High School and never really worried where his songs came from. I just knew that I loved the music. I think the following sentence from the introduction sums up Dylan's greatness: "Dylan's art has long enriched the lives of those who listen to his music, through a genius that captures the essence of what it means to be human." I think this book would be enjoyed by those who are not as particularly taken with Dylan as I am. In addition to his music's classical lineage, I enjoyed learning the "back story" of many of his more notable songs.

[Peter Wolfley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a huge Bob Dylan fan since discovering his music in my early teen years thanks to the Forest Gump soundtrack my parents owned. I've spent hours listening to his music, thinking about his lyrics and trying to figure him out. This book was overflowing with useful and interesting tidbits about his life but the arguments about why he matters were not what I was hoping for. Basically the author says he matters because he is continuing on the tradition of the ancient Greek and Roman poets. That's all well and good but isn't what makes him great in my mind. One of the best parts of the book was a section about how many people are disappointed and even angry when they see him perform live because he doesn't match the Bob Dylan in their minds. When I saw him at the Eccles, I was livid but with the passage of time and with help from this book have come to understand the error of my ways and I actually look forward to seeing him again if the opportunity arises. This book is highly academic but a must read for any die hard fan. Now that this book is finished I need to go back and work my way through the 32 albums.

[Sparrow .]

Richard F. Thomas is a Harvard professor, who teaches a class everyone calls “Bob Dylan 101,” though that’s not its official name. His fellow academicians quietly snickered at him for years – then Dylan won the Nobel Prize. This is Richard F. Thomas’ victory lap.

The book is very precisely titled. It may be the least biographical book about Dylan ever written. And the most Classical. The last book I read about Dylan, Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet by Seth Rogovoy, claimed that his greatest influence was the Old Testament. Thomas says that Dylan (especially since the year 2000) has been reading the Greeks and Romans. Both books are equally convincing. It’s possible that any theory about Dylan can be substantiated with his obscure, prismatic lyrics. "Bob Dylan and the Shopping Channel" would be an interesting study.

Richard is writing about the Bob Dylan of now, not the gorgeous amphetamine addict of the 1960s. He still goes to Dylan concerts (as I do) and doesn’t see the Laureate as a washed-up drug casualty, but as a constantly evolving troubadour. The key to Thomas’ theory is “intertextuality,” the process of copying lines from other writers and weaving them into a text. (He quotes that annoying dictum of T.S. Eliot: “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.”)

After finding Jesus, losing Jesus, finding Judaism, losing Judaism, Dylan began to see himself as Odysseus, the great aging seaman¬ condemned to trail aimlessly through the vast Mediterranean, desperately hoping to return home. In the song “Mississippi” (from “Love & Theft” (2001), Dylan sings:

Well, my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinkin' fast.
I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future, got no past;
But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free.
I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with me.

[Adam Behlman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish they would allow for 1/2 stars because I would do 3.5 stars. His discussions of intermixing was fascinating. I loved seeing the works of Ovid and Homer in the lyrics being interwoven with his words, especially recently makes me want to run to hear them all again.

The parts that didn’t work for me was the fan boy love and his unnecessary take down of other terrific artists.

Worth the read but maybe not every word.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

We all have that Dylan obsessed friend who loves to break down the songs and tells us what Dylan really means. Usually that person whispers lyrics slowly and with great emotion. Well, this book is that guy writ large. Worse yet, it’s a really smart guy.

I love audio books but this is a book that you should read. You will want to put it down, go listen to your old albums and go look at the source materials. The author loves lists. The author throws in chunks of poetry. The author writes in triads.

If you love Bob Dylan you will Iove this book. If you are the guy who likes to slowly recite Dylan to your friends this book is your bible. If you feel like you don’t get Dylan you might just be turned into that guy.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, ok, I've read an embarrassing number of books about the great Bob Dylan, good, bad, and stupid. This one links Bob with the likes of Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Milton, Rimbaud, and a number of lesser known lights. The key word here is "intertextuallity," a.k.a., stealing, but not - I repeat - not plagiarism. Fascinating, in a geeky sort of way. Necessary to nuts like me. There you have it.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bob Dylan matters. The first few chapters and the last were the best. The author tries to hard to associate him with classical poets. There's other associations. The author knows his classics and his Dylan.

[Mary Narkiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book detailing the author's deep appreciation for Bob Dylan's song writing skills and connection to the classic poets.. such as Virgil. One could lose oneself in the maze of connections and associations.

[Ray L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This take from a classicist places Dylan in the tradition of lyric bards from the Greeks and Romans forward, argues that that is how Dylan sees himself and his work, and concludes appropriately with a discussion of the Nobel. The writing for me was a little too worshipful and "fanboy"-ish but Thomas' class at Harvard (from which this is derived) would be a blast.