[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 171 KB, 840x1149, bobdyl.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14973530 No.14973530 [Reply] [Original]

Did he deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature?

>> No.14973535

>>14973530
What do you think?

>> No.14973542

>>14973530
Yes, but others deserved it even more.

>> No.14973548

No, no one does

>> No.14973550

No, he doesn't deserve any acclaim as a musician either.

>> No.14973562

Yes. No poet has ever had the immediate cultural impact he did, and none will ever again

>> No.14973566

>>14973562
correct

>> No.14973568

>>14973550
Visions of joanna is the best folk song of its decade

>> No.14973572

>>14973568
Bob Dylan never made any folk songs. He and Pete Seeger ended the possibility of folk culture existing in America.

>> No.14973574

>>14973550
His acclaim comes from his songwriting not his musicianship

>> No.14973592

It does open up some interesting ideas about recognizing lyricists for their literary value. Who else do you think the Nobel Prize committee will recognize on these grounds? Kendrick Lamar? Jeff Mangum? Matt Berninger?

>> No.14973949

>>14973562
If song lyrics count as poetry (which they don't) and the song writers as poets (they don't) then I'm sure there are more musicians that have had a bigger immediate cultural impact on the world than Dylan had.

>> No.14973956

>>14973592
I think Dylan and Kendrick stand pretty far above any of their peers

>> No.14973961

>>14973956
>Kendrick
LOL

>> No.14973965

>>14973530
No, but he's still the GOAT lyricist

>> No.14973967

>>14973961
>hehe black man

>> No.14973971

>>14973949
Virgil’s poetry was frequently performed as music during his lifetime. Homer’s epics were originally sung. Medeival lyric poetry was primarily sung. The divide between poetry and song is a recent development which came with the rise of pop music. There are a few artists who bridge the gap, and Dylan is absolutely one of them.

>> No.14973976

>>14973967
He's nowhere near Dylan, black or otherwise. To claim they're "peers" is beyond laughable.

>> No.14973994

>>14973967
huehue le socially conscious black man soothes my guilt

>> No.14973998

>>14973971
>Virgil’s poetry was frequently performed as music during his lifetime.
yes
> Homer’s epics were originally sung.
yes
>Medeival lyric poetry was primarily sung
Some was. Some wasn't
>The divide between poetry and song is a recent development which came with the rise of pop music.
lol no, it's much older than that.

>> No.14974020

Imagine being able to stomach either bob dylan or rap. What a state we are in.

>> No.14974024

>>14973976
He’s not as reference-heavy as Dylan, but he’s just as if not more conceptually dense and interesting. Great poetry is fundamentally a portrayal of a fundamentally human experience through well-crafted language, and Kendrick absolutely does that. He may be unpopular in certain circles due to his politics or his race or his popularity, but he absolutely deserves to be included in this discussion.

>> No.14974030

>>14973998
I mean sure, the divide between a folk tradition and more serious art has always been there, but great poets have pretty consistently bridged that gap.

>> No.14974038

>>14973994
>huehue le socially conscious black man
bob dylan but without the black part
>>14973976
It’s a matter of opinion and what you’re looking from a lyricist. You could make the argument that lyricists like Eminem are the best despite him talking about nothing of value just because of the raw lyricism. I don’t like Kendrick. At all really. I think he’s boring and his voice annoys the fuck out of me. But denying he has talent is ridiculous, not to mention he’s still at the height of his career and has many more years to prove his ability

>> No.14974046

>>14974024
I like Kendrick just fine, but he is unbelievably overrated. Him winning the Pulitzer for his worst album was strange

>> No.14974050

>>14974024
Why do black artists only talk about being black? How hard it is being black, how everyone hates them for being black, how black violence pervades black society and black people suffer because they're black. It seems like their main lyrical theme, with butts being a close second.

>> No.14974085

>>14974050
I think they would argue that white artists only talk about being white but they don’t realize it.

>> No.14974088

>>14974050
Because no one else talks about their issues that actually understands what’s it’s like to experience said issues. Rap gives them the opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t have while reaching the largest number of people.

>> No.14974095

>>14974050
They're a one-trick pony. Kendrick is tremendously mediocre.

>> No.14974102

>>14974038
I never said he didn't have talent. I said he was nowhere near Dylan, which is true.

>> No.14974111

>>14974024
>He’s not as reference-heavy as Dylan
Dylan is not "reference-heavy."
> but he’s just as if not more conceptually dense and interesting.
You haven't listened much Dylan beyond the main hits, have you?
Maybe if you

>> No.14974170

>>14974111
His stuff from the 60’s and 70’s isn’t super reference-heavy, I’ll grant you that. Off the top of my head, there’s the Dante line from “tangled up in blue” and the “Verlaine and Rimbaud” line from “you’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.” There’s also a tone of folk references in that era but w/e. On the other hand, his stuff from time out of mind (1997) on is absolutely packed with references. Love and theft is packed with Virgil. Modern times has a ton of stuff from homer and Ovid. The song he released yesterday (murder most foul) draws an incredible parallel between Hamlet and the JFK assassination. And that doesn’t even touch the massive amount of borrowed and recontextualized lines he takes from folk songs, Japanese gangster novels, and everything in between. If you honestly think Dylan isn’t reference heavy I don’t know what to tell you.

>> No.14974230

>>14974050
They talk about things through the lens of being black. That doesn’t mean that they only talk about being black. To Pimp a Butterfly is fundamentally about the problem of fame. Kendrick approaches the topic through his own experience as a black man in 21st century America, but he still reaches universally applicable points about his subject. This take is as misinformed as saying that Dante only talks about being a 13th century Italian Catholic, or that Virgil only talks about being an early-empire-era Roman. My inner Platonism is showing here, but I fully believe that art is simply another way of accessing universals through particulars. Your particulars are not, in most cases, the same as the artists, but that is not a reason to dismiss the art as not being worthwhile.

>> No.14974242

>>14974230
Zzz

>> No.14974395

>>14974230
nice post friend. Actual good point.

>> No.14974413

>>14974024
Dylan is not conceptually dense lol
Kendrick just sucks. "Wish my dick big as the Eiffel Tower." Pass.

>> No.14974472

>>14974230
>Your particulars are not, in most cases, the same as the artists, but that is not a reason to dismiss the art as not being worthwhile.
A good reason to dismiss him is that he sucks.

>> No.14974529

>>14973971
>bob dylan is up there with virgil

whew, lad. k.

>> No.14974561

>>14974413
>quoting a single line completely out of context from a hit song that’s nowhere near his best work

nice strawman friendo

>> No.14974587

>>14974561
yeah hey plenty of authors have figured out to inhabit the voice of a younger person without writing such awful lines

>> No.14974648
File: 315 KB, 1401x1398, rs-182344-20150120.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14974648

>>14973530
yeah, probably

>> No.14974656

I'm as anti-racist as they come. But come on: rap is not poetry.

>> No.14974670

>>14974529
Obviously we can’t really make a comparison like that without the context that time gives. That being said, let me defend it at least a little bit. Many have compared modern America to the period of Roman history that Virgil lived in. So there should at least theoretically be the potential for a similar figure. Virgil was primarily a poet, not a prose author, and his works were popular during his lifetime, especially as sung performances set to instrumentation. Virgil grew up outside the cultural center of the republic, and later moved to that cultural center to pursue his art. So the biographical similarities are present at least in outline. As for artistic merit, I think Dylan possibly could be up there. I certainly can’t think of anyone else In the modern era who has his massive level of influence while also creating serious art that fits into the classical tradition and not just pop culture. Again, though, I think we’re at least a hundred years too early to be able to actually evaluate his place in history.

The test of time is always a difficult problem, because on the one hand it feels wrong to elevate someone to the level of the classics while their art is still very recent. On the other hand, it’s statistically overwhelmingly likely that someone in the modern era is creating or has created very good art that will be studied and taken seriously by academics 200 years down the road. It’s also very likely that if that art is truly one of the classics, it will be known and recognized during the artist’s lifetime outside of purely academic circles. The difficulty lies in knowing what the good lasting art is, and separating it from the art that isn’t worthwhile. There doesn’t seem to be a good way to do that outside of comparing it to art we know is good, which brings us back to the original problem of making comparisons that inspire responses like “wew lad.”

>> No.14974687

>>14974656
it's the poetry of the street

>> No.14974691

>>14974656
Then what is it? How else are you going to classify it? It uses the same structures as poetry, and in many ways it evolved from beat poetry. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent way to define poetry that excludes rap. It’s pretty frequently not good poetry, but it is definitely poetry.

>> No.14974695

>>14973568
>>14973592
>>14973965
>>14974648
He is no Leonard Cohen

>> No.14974702

>>14974656
Radio rap lyricism is fucking awful right now but there are some good lyricists in rap still

>> No.14974705

>>14974695
When it comes to his lyrics Cohen is the definition of pseud. I still like his songs though.

>> No.14974710

>>14974587
Plenty of authors have had bad lines forgotten because they weren’t worth preserving. Generally we judge artists by their best work, not their worst.

>> No.14974712

>>14974705
I've never heard that before care to explain why?

>> No.14974713
File: 7 KB, 216x233, bye.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14974713

>>14974230
>tfw Kendrick wins the Nobel but Pynchon never will

>> No.14974725

>>14974710
yeah kendrick has a lot of bad lines but not a lot of lines worth preserving
>My titties bounce on the cadence of his tinklin' keys

>> No.14974755

>>14974691
>How else are you going to classify it?
Popular song lyrics. Which weren't considered as competition to the verse of Milton, Donne, Pope, Baudelaire, Yeats, et al at the time that they were active. Let's get real.

>> No.14974759

>>14974725
“Calonice [feeling Lampito’s breasts]: A very nice pair you’ve got here, too.”

-Aristophanes

I can strawman and rip lines out of context too.

>> No.14974767

>>14974759
>I'm eyein' every male gender with intentions of buyin'
lol the fuck does this mean, "every male gender"??? this isn't ripping lines out of context. this is one of his more acclaimed songs. his 12 minute statement piece. and he leaves that shit in it. every male gender. lol.

>> No.14974769

>>14974695
cohen is dead and therefore ineligible for the nobel prize

>> No.14974774

>>14974769
He wasn't at the time

>> No.14974776

>>14974755
The ecologues could have been classified as popular lyrics at the time they were written.

>> No.14974777

>>14974759
>evaluating poetry based upon a random translation into English
You're never gonna make it.

>> No.14974782

>>14974767
>black man uses English different from me therefore he bad art

>> No.14974788

>>14974777
That’s not a line from a poem

>> No.14974796

>>14974776
Are you serious? Where do you get that?

>> No.14974801

>>14974788
Glad we agree.

>> No.14974811

>>14974782
stop deflecting, simp. i listen to plenty of rap. i have never heard anyone else say "every male gender"

>Okay, now open your mind up and listen me, Kendrick
>I am your conscience, if you do not hear me
>Then you will be history, Kendrick
did he just give up here or did he think his audience was too dumb to understand what pov he was writing from if he did not literally rap "I am your conscience"? anything more subtle than that would be above their heads

>> No.14974823

>>14974777
I wasn’t using that example to evaluate poetry, I was using it show that you can make most literature look vacuous or stupid by pulling random lines out of context, and that only an idiot would attempt to evaluate poetry by doing that.

>> No.14974846

>>14974811
You keep pulling shit from an album that’s absolutely not his best work. GKMC is good but there’s lots of corny shit on there as well. Which I guess makes it easy to strawman but fairly useless if you’re trying to have a real conversation about his artistry.

>> No.14974891

>>14974823
I understand what you're getting at, but the challenger upthread quoted a verse in its original language, and in your response you quoted a translation. Obviously poetry is not about the 'plot' or translatable 'content'.

>> No.14974915

>>14974891
The thing I quoted wasn’t originally written in verse. Not sure why you keep talking about it like I’m trying to translate poetry or evaluate poetry through a translation.

>> No.14974962

>>14974915
>The thing I quoted wasn’t originally written in verse.
What makes you say that?

>> No.14975016

>>14973971
Nah. Both Greeks and Medieval lyric poetry had creative and complex poetic structures, which is why they're considered poetry and not simply song. Dylan doesn't ever reach that.

>> No.14975022

>>14973971
>The divide between poetry and song
The divide at issue is between poetry and folk songs.

>> No.14975057
File: 10 KB, 348x300, 1579685861690.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14975057

>>14974846
>only talk about the parts I think are good

>> No.14975063

>>14973530
Adam Sandler won the novel prize for literature?
Western culture really is dead.

>> No.14975064

>>14974782
Yes.

>> No.14975076

>>14974774
then who knows, if he'd stuck around long enough he might have got it

>> No.14975077

>>14975064
>finna

>> No.14975665

Music > Le Lyrics

If you listen to songs and care more about lyrics then read poetry (i.e. faggotry) instead, for fuck's sake.

>> No.14975678

>>14973956
>Kendrick
off yourself zoomer, don't let yourself grow up.

>> No.14975691

If they really wanted to give the prize to a songwriter, and it seems they did, then Dylan makes sense. He's obviously a greater artist than say Atwood or Pamuk, regional writers at best.

>> No.14975790
File: 81 KB, 640x640, bob-dylan-murder-most-foul-1585282139-640x640.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14975790

>Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
>Shot down like a dog in broad daylight
>Was a matter of timing and the timing was right
>You got unpaid debts, we've come to collect
>We're gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect
>We'll mock you and shock you and we'll put it in your face
>We've already got someone here to take your place
>The day they blew out the brains of the king
>Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing
>It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise
>Right there in front of everyone's eyes
>Greatest magic trick ever under the sun
>Perfectly executed, skillfully done

>Zapruder's film I seen night before
>Seen it thirty-three times, maybe more
>It's vile and deceitful, it's cruel and it's mean
>Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
>They killed him once and they killed him twice
>Killed him like a human sacrifice
>The day that they killed him, someone said to me, "Son
>The age of the Antichrist has just only begun"

>I said the soul of a nation been torn away
>And it's beginning to go into a slow decay

What did he mean by this?

>> No.14975828

Sorry, but poetry implies at least a meter.

Rap and folk songs are great -- and fuck anyone who is racist or classicist in that regard!

But let's get real.

>> No.14975901

>>14973530
If the nobel prize's duty is to edify the works of artists who have imparted some artistic tenderness upon the public consciousness, and this appears to be the case with historic winners, as rarely have an avant garde or totally obscure artist have won it, then Dylan is, perhaps an ideal candidate. Yes, Dylan is at times hackneyed, preachy and mawkish.. to the disdain of the high brows...he is certainly no Frost. He is the figure of a fail cultural movement, not the hippies, for they had no artistic merit but the beats. The beats and their groupies are now very much beat. Old boomers, especially boomers return to the ballads of Dylan, whose voice seems to have desiccated from a lifetime of thirst, now is the comfort and refuge of these boomers. They laud dylan, saying his lyrics are so rich and meaningful. In a sense, much as some of the dispassionate and languid souls here embroil themselves in empassionate defense of the classics, dylan is the same figure for the boomers. From their apologetics, we can give reprieve to these boomers and their figurehead. Dylan is an artist.

>> No.14975911

>>14975665
a man who cannot appreciate poetry, the arts is an incomplete man

>> No.14976012

>>14975911
i have better ways of appreciating "the arts", as "songs" are a better medium for me to scratch the itch of my musical cravings.

I refer to actual literature when i want to appreciate "poetry"