Blowin in the Wind’ with Bob Dylan- Dylan’s Poetic Impact on American Society with an Analysis of the Poetic Expressions of Select Five Songs

Abstract

The Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016 must have come in for as a surprise because it was awarded to the American singer and song-writer, Bob Dylan. But though his work does not fit into the literary canons of poetry, prose or short story, which the prize used to recognize traditionally; he has been acclaimed and appreciated "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, (Danius). Inspired by the American musician and song writer Woody Guthrie, Dylan entered the New York music scene in 1961 with his songs which were doused in protest against contemporary American lifestyle and society. His lyricism has been called exquisite with his timeless concerns and subjects and his great influence. They also had a poetic angle about them. This paper proposes to analyse the kind of poetic expressions which Dylan used in the selected five songs namely Blowin’ in the Wind, Knockin on Heaven’s Door, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonnafall, Like a Rolling Stone and The Times they are A-Changein; keeping in purview the shifting paradigms in contemporary poetry and tries to fathom why Dylan was chosen from among many popular short lists, as the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, 2016.