Further Thoughts on Bob Dylan's Nobel

As I wrote yesterday, I can understand if people have problems with Bob Dylan winning the Nobel in Literature because they don't think he's a very good poet, or at least that his work isn't to the standard of an Eliot or Yeats. But to claim that song writing isn't really writing, or to imply that only authors of book length compositions should be considered for the award is ridiculous. Poetry can be but normally isn't a long form genre, yet 46 of the 113 winners of the Prize were granted the honor, at least in part, for their poetry (19 were cited for their poetry alone). 

Well, songs are listened to, not read, others argue. But dramatists have been awarded (29 times) and, though students are often assigned plays to read, it's indigenous medium is the stage not the page, where directors, set designers, wardrobe departments, makeup artists and, ultimately, actors interpret the work through actions, sets, props, lighting - not to mention by speaking the lines of dialogue to listening ears. Reading a play is like examining a set of blueprints: it gives you the basic design and intention of the architect, but the building isn't truly realized in full until it is actually built. It's the same with a play, or a song. The words do not live until they are dramatized or, in Dylan's case, sung. 

Four winners were cited, in part, for their screenplays, which are very rarely the work of a single writer, even if they are credited as such. And the mediation of the film art in delivering a screenplay to the screen is even greater than a stage company's in the production of a play. In both cases an actor's inflection or director's staging of a scene can change the meaning of the words. In film there is also the use of lenses, camera angles, aspect ratios, color or monochrome photography, among other possible factors, that can alter or change the meaning of the written text. There too is the question of how freely the director allows the actors to ad-lib. All these things wreak havoc on the written material. Considering all the corruption that could come to a dramatic work, and that plays for the screen and stage are not meant to be read by solitary readers to begin with, should such writers be considered for the award? You should know my answer by now.

The last objection I've seen is that Bob Dylan is already a popular artist who doesn't need the acclaim, or else he labors in a popular medium, so is unworthy of such a prestigious award. I addressed this yesterday, by saying many past winners had achieved commercial success and public fame by the time they won. It's essentially an award for a lifetime of achievement, not encouragement to keep plugging away, though that could be a part of it too. 

The objection also exposes a strange contemporary prejudice: that true art is that which only a few have actually experienced and even fewer can understand. It is the purview of the elite, of the few, of the cultural gnostics who possess the hidden knowledge that the pin head masses lack. If an artist's work has touched a broad spectrum of folks, its merits must be suspect. I'm sure there are worthy writers who never reach a mass audience because of any number of factors beyond their control: often it's because a publisher doesn't think the work is commercial enough and isn't willing to take a chance on it, which is too bad. But sometimes it's because they are writing about things that don't connect with regular people and their experiences. Maybe they are being obscure under the guise of being artistic. Maybe they are cultural gnostics speaking to other gnostics, and are so leaving the wider public behind, because they don't respect them. Good literature should open up the reader to a new world, but it should be accessible so the reader can actually enter. Too much contemporary art in general isn't interested in communicating, but seeks to validate the artist to his or her self and whatever small group of admirers who are in on the gag.  

I'm going to stop short right here, because I have more to say, but don't want to turn this thing into a book. First, I will finish a post I've been working on about the election, then I'll finish off my thoughts on Bob Dylan.