Shopping around for a topic for this week’s article, a Facebook story shared by a friend offered up its own unique gem: an analysis of Bob Dylan’s winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Granted, this is far from breaking news. The Prize was awarded this past December, and the world has had its chance to react to the news of an American folk singer winning the highest literary award possible. But a new column in the New York Times’ “On Poetry” section by David Orr was released just the other day and it caught my eye.
In a thorough and fair assessment of the unexpected choice for the Nobel Prize, Orr acknowledges the similarities that are inevitable between song and poetry. He also proceeds to delineate the difference between the two.
As a writer myself (albeit one who belongs much more to the tradition of prose than poetry), this issue is one that I find both fascinating and incredibly important.
While there is (as admitted) similarities between song and poetry, they are not the same thing. They cannot be the same thing because they forcefully and purposefully differentiate themselves.
Poetry is written. Songs are sung. That is, while both comprise a lyrical quality, song takes the extra step by actually including music. Take away the guitar and the microphone, slap Bob Dylan on a piece of paper and he’s not Bob Dylan anymore. He’s a shell. The same cannot be said of Robert Frost.
Which leads me to my next point. The performance aspect of song is part of what makes it definitively song. Bob Dylan and other countless singers stand up on a stage and sing, dance, and interact in a live setting with fans. Again, the same cannot be said of Robert Frost.
This “performance aspect” is one that is readily taken on by Mr. Orr in his column: “screenplays and theatrical plays resemble each other more closely than do songs and poems, but that has yet to result in Quentin Tarantino winning the Pulitzer in drama”. Mr. Orr also examines the hypocritical nature of awarding a singer the Nobel Prize, but not the reverse: “John Ashbery will be waiting a long time for his Grammy”.
But perhaps the most convincing argument Orr cites against the fusion of thought in terms of poetry and song is colloquial: “No one plays an album by Chris Stapleton, or downloads the cast recording of ‘Hamilton’, or stands in line for a Taylor Swift concert, and says something like, ‘I can’t wait to listen to these poems!’”. And indeed, if in the public, collective consciousness poetry and song are not equivalent, why are they at a congratulatory level?
Granted, this is not in any way to disparage Bob Dylan. I like folk. I like Dylan. Yet, I also believe in the integrity of my chosen field, as I’m sure Dylan does in his. Say they did grant Tarantino that Pulitzer? Jennifer Lawrence a Grammy (she does sing that moving bit in The Hunger Games)? Jonathan Larson (rest in peace) an Oscar? We create division amongst mediums in the arts because we acknowledge the impossibility of evaluating and comparing works when they don’t play by the same rules. If asked which is the best, Tarantino’s direction in Pulp Fiction, Lawrence’s acting in Silver Linings Playbook, or Rent (either Larson’s writing or the film version), how does one respond? They’re all on different playing fields.
Likewise, Bob Dylan and Ernest Hemingway are both great artists. It would be unfair to rank them against one another, however, because what they do is so incredibly different. While I think I can subjectively (and to a degree objectively) say Hemingway is a greater writer than Christopher Paolini and Dylan is a greater singer than the Backstreet Boys, to claim Hemingway superior to his fellow Nobel laureate or vice versa would be a mistake.
Ultimately, I realize the decision the Swedish Academy for the politics it adheres to (after all, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize just for getting people to vote for him). Bob Dylan is cool, or at least amongst a certain crowd. And (as Orr also acknowledges) that coolness is part of what the Academy was probably reaching for in nominating and ultimately giving him the award. But in doing so, is some integrity, some integral part of the honor in the award, lost?
Considering Dylan himself was so surprised at his win he did not even attend the ceremony to accept the award, one would have to think so.
