Is Dylan Literature?

[poliphilo]

Lets not be too precious about literature meaning marks on paper. Much of what we call literature started out oral. Homer and Sappho, as the Nobel committee pointed out, would have sung or intoned their work and Homer- the blind minstrel- was almost certainly illiterate. Even today a lot of literature is designed to be performed rather than read. We call the great playwrights literature, we call the Book of Common Prayer literature, we call the Gettysburg Address literature- so why not Dylan?

Comments

[basefinder.livejournal.com]

No complaint here. When I was late-teens (late 1970s) it was popular among my group of friends to listen to his early stuff, and much of it was lost on me. Four decades later, I might benefit from revisiting his work.