Is Dylan Literature? Why the Question Is More Important Than the Answer

Is Dylan Literature?  Why the Question Is More Important Than the Answer

In a stunning announcement last month, the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the American singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Not surprisingly, those waiting for this year’s winner showed wildly diverse reactions, from delight to dismay. Some even saw the Prize as proof that the book is dead, or that the business of selling books is even further doomed.

The most interesting question to me, however, is not whether Dylan’s work deserved a Nobel Prize (and certainly not whether the Prize indicates some downfall of reading as we know it). Quite the opposite, I’m intrigued by the implicit expansion of the idea of literature, and correspondingly, an exploration of its readers.

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