Dylanists discussion

Often cited as one of Dylan's masterpieces.

Visions of Johanna - Adelphi Theatre, Dublin 5 may 1966

40 years later:
Visions of Johanna - Prague, 2005

A close reading of VoJ by Jonny Thakkar in The Owl.

Home with flu, so decided to read this article again. It's a great analysis, in which the author makes a good case for Blake allusions throughout VoJ, including "little boy lost" and "Infinity goes up on trial".

I know that Dylan is notoriously silent on the issue of his literary references, although Blake and Rimbaud are often cited as sources, and there is the invariable comparison to Keats (which frankly, I don't quite get).... And of course, direct reference to TS Eliot and Ezra Pound in Desolation Row.

If anyone out there knows their Blake and Rimbaud better than I (and all of you are likely to!), I'd be interested in where else these allusions occur in Dylan's work.

Blake I have a passing familiarity with, but Rimbaud is a complete unknown to me. What should I read?

Well, not just the namedropping of those two poets, I figure the "And fishermen hold flowers between the windows of the sea" is lifted from Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. "Through hostile cities and unfriendly towns" in 'Maybe Someday' is also from Eliot.

http://www.expectingrain.com/discussi...

BTW, it should be noted Dylan himself is obviously the little boy lost who brags of his misery; desperation caused by the intangibility of eternal love/beauty and salvation leads him to move away from first person, as he himself would be unable to experience something like a farewell kiss from a figure as distant as Johanna - a very fitting idea for "Blonde on Blonde" where the artist ultimately suffers from being condemned into a chaotic 'life' consistently painful and physical, where sex has become so distant from his idea of LOVE. Sex is one of the main motivators in the case of "Blonde on Blonde", and for Dylan obviously has a direct relation to art, which is why "Infinity goes up on trial" inside the museums in the song - as Dylan himself once said (I'm paraphrasing): "Museums are sexless." Look up the 1966 Playboy interview for the full quote. As far as "Blonde on Blonde" goes, nothing in Dylan's case is a bigger entrapment than embracing strictly physical forms and objects (especially when art in its traditional sense has become obsolete), which is what he ironically focuses so much on. One that limits oneself to carnal delights without needing the spiritual is worthless. Unfortunately for him, he is locked inside of these delights, stuck in them, and his body becomes a 'corroding empty cage' where the 'cape of the stage' of the eternal once had flowed. And to a certain extent, sexual frustrations become a source of primal sexist malevolence that is present on, for example, "Street-Legal", which is the last shameless fight between good and evil - hence, becoming a born-again Christian was an important step, because love suddenly becomes more pure ("Covenant Woman" on 'Saved' is a nice example) and women cease being his whores.