Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize.
The Peace Prize for “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War”? No. The Chemistry Prize for his duets with Joan Baez? No. The Prize for Music? There is no prize for music. He won the Prize for Literature.
OK, even many of us Dylan fans responded to the news with a “huh?” Are songwriters to be counted in the ranks of novelists, dramatists, and poets? Well, why not? Poetry used to be accompanied by music anyway, which is why we call it “lyric.” And Dylan is nothing if not a poet.
So congratulations to the one true Bob. And I hope that Pete, our resident Dylan scholar here at the Cranach Institute, weighs in. I can’t wait to hear what Dylan will say at his acceptance speech.
From Nobel Prize In Literature 2016: Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Claims Literary Award : The Two-Way : NPR:
Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. In doing so, the prolific musician became the first American to win the prize in more than two decades. Not since novelist Toni Morrison won in 1993 has an American claimed the prize.
Dylan won the prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” according to the citation by the Swedish Academy, the committee that annually decides the recipient of the Nobel Prize. The academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, announced the news Thursday.
The win comes as something of a shock. As usual, the Swedish Academy did not announce a shortlist of nominees, leaving the betting markets to their best guesses. And while Dylan has enjoyed perennial favor as an outside shot for the award, few expected that the musician would be the first to break the Americans’ long dry spell — not least because he made his career foremost on the stage, not the printed page.
Yet few would argue Dylan has been anything but influential, both in the U.S. and beyond its borders. The prolific singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has produced dozens of albums, including The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks. His track “Like a Rolling Stone” has taken on mythic standing in the decades since its release; many, including Dylan himself, have pointed to it as emblematic of a sea change in American music.
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