This is the key paragraph from Rob Sheffield's Rolling Stone piece, to which I linked up-thread, in which he uses Emerson to argue that Dylan IS a sort-of latter-day Shakespeare, not in quality, necessarily, but in cultural terms:



The best argument for Dylan's Nobel Prize comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, even though he died a century before Shot of Love. His 1850 essay "Shakespeare; or the Poet," from the book Representative Men, works as a cheat sheet to Dylan. For Emerson, Shakespeare's greatness was to exploit the freedoms of a disreputable format, the theater: "Shakespeare, in common with his comrades, esteemed the mass of old plays, waste stock, in which any experiment could be freely tried. Had the prestige which hedges about a modern tragedy existed, nothing could have been done. The rude warm blood of the living England circulated in the play, as in street-ballads."

John--I'm definitely a Dylan fan, but I deny having been rude to anyone in this thread. On Frost, Stevens, et al, isn't the Nobel a prize for a living writer (maybe I'm mistaken)? If we're going to include the dead, then, yeah, Shakespeare and company would have to get in line behind Sappho and the Tragedy Boys. Frost and Stevens can wait their turn.

With Dylan, I'm reminded of a cat outside sitting on the windowsill. I need an interpreter to understand what he is singing. I don't say this as a criticism, I say it because I never did LSD or tripped on mushrooms to understand what he said. I like a good bit of his lyrics. I like them sung by nearly anyone else but him. Some of his poetry is pretty darn good. If Obama can be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing, I suppose Dylan deserves at least a Nobel for doing something. I'd like to see someone like Geoffrey Brock win it.

Oh, Charlie. I think everybody agrees that Obama got his Nobel for NOT being GWB. You're just blowing off political steam there; it's not relevant to the question. The same goes for the old jokes about Dylan's singing voice and druggy adventures--although on the former point it's interesting that he divides people, Marmite-like, into love and hate camps. For everyone in your yowling cat brigade, there's somebody who says he's a "great" singer, if not a pretty one. I've been trying (and failing) to find for this thread a quote from Graham Nash (himself well known for pretty singin') to the effect that Dylan is the very greatest singer he's ever heard. I know I read it somewhere...

Dylan gave a speech last year in which he quoted Sam Cooke:The quickest answer I can give about why I love Dylan's voice is that it convinces me he is telling the truth. It's remarkably expressive in its range of tones and phrasing, from tender to petulant to angry to sardonic to funny, and I believe there is a musicality and sense of rhythm that is intricate and sophisticated.

There are lots of great singers who didn't have a pretty voice, at least according to some. Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin. Great, great singers (better than Dylan, admittedly). And the coffee houses are filled with nothing-special singers who hit every note and are as pleasant as Muzak.

Several months ago we had a similar comparison of the rawness of Billie Holiday's vocals, in comparison with the elegant finesse of Ella Fitzgerald.

Who was the "better" singer, technically speaking? Ella was, no question.

But I can't deny the visceral force of Billie's voice sometimes, precisely because it's stripped so bare of artifice, apparent skill, etc. I get the impression that I'm in the presence of naked, honest emotion.

Although I'm not a big fan of his work, the same applies to Dylan, sometimes, for me.

Others' mileage may vary.

I was so pleased this award was given to Dylan. He spoke for my generation with wonderful lyricism. Sometimes his lyrics were, as Larkin said, half-baked, but at his best he was sublime. As Roger said elsewhere, Tambourine Man alone is enough to justify the Nobel.
There are other songwriters who have written fine poems, eg this one from The Eagles:

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow

Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet

Now, it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table,
But you only want the ones that you can't get

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're losin' all your highs and lows;
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences; open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

It's interesting that formalists have been greatly in agreement with this award; free-versers less so.

Of course Frost can't get it NOW. He should have got it THEN. Any comparison of Dylan with Shakespeare is ludicrous.

What is this stuff about telling the truth? What has poetry got to do with telling the truth, as Philip Sidney said. MacBeth isn't TRUE. .

The Nobel people needed to up their profile. Well, they've certainly done that. And who do they give it to, next year, eh?

When I considered pop songs a form of literature, Dylan was foremost among the artists I knew I should listen to more closely if I ever got to edit the Norton anthology; his reputation suggested I should like his songs better.

I value pop music less now--and the Swedish Academy says I'm wrong again.

John, my own point about truth had to do with the vocal performance, not the poetry itself.

I'm sure we've all endured performances of Shakespeare's plays that were not to our personal taste--in part because we weren't convinced that the words and situations were being brought to life in an authentic way. (Emotionally authentic, that is--I'm able to swallow some modernized versions hook, line, and sinker, even though the actors are dressed as Nazis or whatever, while still spouting Elizabethan dialogue.)

But whether or not I enjoy Dylan's voice shouldn't be a reflection on his lyrics' merit as poetry, just as the number of really horribly over-acted "To be or not to be" recitations I've heard should have no bearing on whether that should be judged a great soliloquy.