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. |
From inside the book
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Page 22
... proven flexible in performance across the two decades covered in this book, a
manageable unit of time for observing how the same artistic work can shift its
meaning in shifting social conditions. What did Chaucer do so well, anyhow, that
...
... proven flexible in performance across the two decades covered in this book, a
manageable unit of time for observing how the same artistic work can shift its
meaning in shifting social conditions. What did Chaucer do so well, anyhow, that
...
Page 59
This structure and positioning more precisely show why the described shift in
Dylan's vocal inflection on the word "girl" can so shift the meaning of the song: as
pearl mediates between natural and cultural values, between crystal and oyster,
...
This structure and positioning more precisely show why the described shift in
Dylan's vocal inflection on the word "girl" can so shift the meaning of the song: as
pearl mediates between natural and cultural values, between crystal and oyster,
...
Page 67
The long e of "believe" otherwise appears in the opening "feels," in the shifting
senses of "see," and in Baby's other name, "she." In the last stanza, by
incorporating his newly gained knowledge of feeling, seeing, believing, and birth,
the ...
The long e of "believe" otherwise appears in the opening "feels," in the shifting
senses of "see," and in Baby's other name, "she." In the last stanza, by
incorporating his newly gained knowledge of feeling, seeing, believing, and birth,
the ...
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Common terms and phrases
ABCB aesthetic ain't 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 four fourth stanza Freewheelin Hard Rain harmonica Highway 61 Highway 61 Revisited Idiot Wind Idiot wind Blowing imagery imitate instrumental break Isis Joan Baez John Wesley Harding listener listener's melody meter Miss Lonely musical beat musicians narrative narrator narrator's Newport 65 organ chords outtake Oxford Town patterns performance phrase piano pitch plays poetic rain's a-gonna fall 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 third stanza throughout the song unresolved verse vowel woman Woody Guthrie words and music
Bibliographic information
| Title | Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob Dylan G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series |
| Authors | Betsy Bowden, Bob Dylan |
| Edition | 2, illustrated |
| Publisher | University Press of America, 2001 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | 11 May 2010 |
| ISBN | 0761819479, 9780761819479 |
| Length | 263 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / General Music / Instruction & Study / Songwriting |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |