[John Whitworth]

I don't see how Dylan's lyrics will pass as literature without the music. There isn't a Nobel prize for music is there?

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

What do the third and fourth lines mean, if anything? I thnk Dylan is well short of the Beatles in this line. Or Simon and Garfunkel. Or Cole Porter. Or even Leonard Cohen. I don't think I know anything by Bruce Springsteen. Or do I?

About half the Nobel prizes for literature are for gluggers. Tagore, for God's sake. And nothing for Hardy or Larkin or Auden.