Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob DylanBob Dylan is not a poet. He is a singer-songwriter, a performing artist. The unit of his art, as collected and documented by his intended audience, is the live performance. Right now, no existing technological tool can give researchers ready access to his entire corpus of work. Revised from the author's Ph.D. dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1978) and again from its first edition (Indiana UP, 1982), Performed Literature develops a methodology for close analysis of verbal art that is heard, not seen, using as comparative examples 24 performances of 11 songs by Bob Dylan. The second edition adds a preface, two major appendices and one minor one, and a detailed index. |
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Page 41
... imagery shifts from the wandering , fighting , knight - errant hero , who suffers in spite of our expectations for his glory , to the Christian hero , who ought to attain glory by means of suffering on the cross - but who , instead of ...
... imagery shifts from the wandering , fighting , knight - errant hero , who suffers in spite of our expectations for his glory , to the Christian hero , who ought to attain glory by means of suffering on the cross - but who , instead of ...
Page 149
... imagery . The " Blood on your saddle " curse that follows , however , makes less complex poetry than in the standard version : " One day you'll be in the ditch " becomes , in concert , " One day you'll be in the grave , " no longer ...
... imagery . The " Blood on your saddle " curse that follows , however , makes less complex poetry than in the standard version : " One day you'll be in the ditch " becomes , in concert , " One day you'll be in the grave , " no longer ...
Page 154
... imagery , so that a listener experiences each emotion one more time before the narrator's abrupt switch to first ... imagery patterns . The last half of the fourth outtake verse focuses on the sweet lady , reminding us that the song's ...
... imagery , so that a listener experiences each emotion one more time before the narrator's abrupt switch to first ... imagery patterns . The last half of the fourth outtake verse focuses on the sweet lady , reminding us that the song's ...
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Common terms and phrases
ABCB aesthetic ain't Al Kooper album artistic audience aural Babe Baby Ballad bass Beatles becomes Blonde on Blonde Bob Dylan chord change concert version couplet culture drums Dylan's songs Dylan's voice effect electric guitar emotional feel female Ferry's Folklore four fourth stanza Freewheelin Hard Rain harmonica Highway 61 Highway 61 Revisited Idiot Wind Idiot wind Blowing imagery imitate instrumental break Isis John Wesley Harding listener listener's melody meter Miss Lonely musical beat musicians narrative narrator narrator's Newport 65 oral organ chords outtake Oxford Town performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic recorded refrain released rhyme word riff rock Rolling Stone Sad-Eyed Lady scene second stanza Shelter shift singers sings someone song's sound stanza studio version Subterranean Homesick Blues suggests sung lines sweet lady syllables tambourine tape textual third stanza throughout the song Univ unresolved verse vowel woman Woody Guthrie words and music York