Bob Dylan's Controversial Win Of The Nobel Prize In Literature

Bob Dylan’s controversial win of the Nobel Prize in Literature garnered many heated arguments. Some thought it was a well-deserved win while the others lamented the missed opportunity to laud a more deserving writer, raising the question of whether lyrics can even be considered as literature. I argue that lyrics are indeed literature, and Dylan deserves the award not only because lyrics are literature but also because his works are great literature. Furthermore, I write my own lyrics to mimic Dylan’s intertextuality by getting the inspiration for my song lyrics from Dylan.

In 1895, Alfred Nobel, father of the Nobel Prize, stated in his will that the Nobel Prize in Literature should be awarded to an author who has, “produced in the field of

In his 2013 op-ed in The New York Times, Bill Wyman, a freelance writer and former arts editor at NPR and Salon, already questions why Dylan had not received a Nobel Prize yet. He lists Dylan’s unconventionality and popularity as possible reasons as to why Dylan’s odds are against his getting a Nobel Prize and disproves them. Wyman takes the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Dario Fo as another unorthodox winner, describing Fo as, “the incorrigible and profane Italian playwright, at whose selection the Roman Catholic Church in particular was amusingly aghast.” As for Dylan’s popularity, Wyman questions, “Why discount what has been written because of where it ends up?” After all, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, and Euripides had enjoyed their fame during their lifetimes. Moreover, Dylan does not let himself be corrupted by the desire for popular acclaim. On the contrary, he is known to reject audience’s expectations and undermine his

To see them as anything else is to forget the bulk of the art form’s history…However, since the advent of writing, a poetry that is written primarily for the printed page has evolved down some very different paths from its oral counterpart.” Moreover, since lyrics are not expected to stand on their own, without the musicality, they seem “disembodied and flat.” Therefore, songs and poetry are better left separately, but when exceptions arise, they should be embraced because “they are likely combining the best of both sides of the art form and as such are truly wondrous to behold.” Dylan is such