Bob Dylan Honored With 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

 

For years Bob Dylan's named circulated as a long-shot for the Nobel (100/1 odds in 2011), and today we are surprised and delighted to find the revolutionary folksinger, songwriter, poet, and rocker awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Sewell Chan at the New York Times reports:

The singer and songwriter Bob Dylan, one of the world’s most influential rock musicians, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy.

He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

Sara Danius, a literary scholar and the permanent secretary of the 18-member Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, called Mr. Dylan “a great poet in the English-speaking tradition” and compared him to Homer and Sappho, whose work was delivered orally. Asked if the decision to award the prize to a musician signaled a broadening in the definition of literature, Ms. Danius jokingly responded, “The times they are a changing, perhaps,” referencing one of Mr. Dylan’s songs.

To delve into Dylan's poetics, head to this 2006 article by Robert Polito. We'll leave you with the quintessential jingle-jangle to help you celebrate today.