An Intertextual Study On Bob Dylan's Lyrics In View Of His Nobel Lecture

Widely acknowledged as a rock artist and singer-songwriter,Bob Dylan(1941-)is also a poet in contemporary America.Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.As the Nobel laureate,Dylan maintains a profound fixation with Western literature tradition,in which the body of his works is deeply rooted.Dylan's indebtedness to the traditions of Western literature is better evinced by his Nobel lecture.In his acceptance speech delivered on 10 December 2016,by enumerating volumes of classic literary works,Dylan gave a comprehensive description about the traditional sources,from which he borrowed freely in the process of artistic creation.Beyond that,Dylan emphatically expressed at great length his views on Moby Dick,All Quiet on the Western Front and The Odyssey,boldly admitting for the first time the creative inspirations brought by those three books.Not only does Dylan's Nobel lecture vigorously demonstrate the important status of the aforementioned canonical literary works in his heart,but also offers new guidance for Dylanologists and literary scholars.The term intertextuality coined by Julia Kristeva lays emphasis on the duality of texts,that is to say,all texts are inter-texts.The operating mechanism of intertextual theory rests on the transformation and transposition between texts.Reinterpreting intertextuality from psychoanalytic dimension,Harold Bloom contends that to be strong poets,new poets must rewrite the precursor's poems by way of misreading.Being proficient at the game of textual interconnectedness and interdependence,Dylan,like a sponge,absorbs in a conscious or unconscious way materials passed down from literary precursors,and then transforms,redirects,and reinterprets the borrowing for his own purpose,which offers the basis for this thesis to study Dylan's lyrics from the perspective of intertextuality.Grounded on the fundamental definitions of intertextuality provided by Kristeva and Bloom,instructed by Dylan's Nobel lecture,the project undertaken by this thesisis to investigate the ways in which Dylan's lyrics form intertextuality with Moby Dick,All Quiet on the Western Front,and The Odyssey,and how his creative treason is achieved.This thesis is comprised of five parts: In addition to exhibiting a brief overview of the influence of Western literature tradition upon his poetic writings,the introduction takes the measure of Bob Dylan's artistic career and the decisive significance of his lyrics,before summarizing and analyzing relevant research devoted to Dylan's lyrics at home and abroad since the 1960 s.The theory of intertextuality is then introduced and reviewed.The first chapter of this study expounds on Dylan's inheritance of and deviation from the tragic and salvation theme exemplified by the main characters of “Ahab” and “Ishmael” in Melville's Moby Dick,the imitation and subversion of the plot,and adaption of the “coffin” imagery in the novel.Chapter two emphatically elucidates Dylan's repetition of and deviation from narrative strategies,adaption of the plot “Paul's returning home”,and rewriting of war images embedded in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.Chapter three is conducted in reference to the intertextuality between The Odyssey and Dylan's lyrics,broadening it to include Dylan's deviation from the motif—“pursuing home”,modification of “guide” and “roadblockers” on the road,and Dylan's inheritance and transcendence of the chanting tradition and oral formulas in the epic.The final section is the conclusion of this thesis.Intertextuality theory enables us to see the ways in which the ephebes shelter from the anxiety produced by precursors' influential power.After a focused intertextual examination of Dylan's lyrics,this thesis arrives at the conclusion that the lyrics Dylan writes yield dialogues with the above-mentioned three canonical literary works in terms of theme,plot,narrative technique,image,and character.At the same time Dylan has engaged himself in creative correction towards those already written elements.A case study on intertextuality in Dylan's lyrics allows for a restricted view of Dylan's inheritance and innovation of Western literature tradition.Bob Dylan's contribution to modern literature does not lie so much in“creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” as in addressing perfectly the relationship between tradition and originality,and infusing new poetic expressions for Western literature tradition,based upon which Dylanredefines literary canon and writes distinctive poetic imagination.