Bob Dylan Nobel Prize & Johnny Cash in The New Yorker

[Brownlie]

Poetry should be fun or possibly it should be super depressing to spur social movements. Shakespeare, or whatever we call Shakespeare, is a genius (however he uses early modern language and can be a little bit of a chore to follow now). ahem, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Plus Macbeth's funny as hell always trippin out on hemlock, putananny or paranoia or whatever.

Bob Dylan's pretty good. Saw some Woodstock footage that was pretty cool. I mean whoa, that shit was heavy. Other stuff I've read/heard seems pretty good as well.

Not sure about the rationale they gave behind nominating him. Why didn't they just say they liked him,  a lot of people enjoy his stuff, he's got some depth to his lyrics, and they're sick of sounding snoby and out of touch. 

Of course poetry is like music. duh! why in the world would you have stresses and what not if you didn't care about the sound of it.

Homer's stuff is all in iambic hexameter, and he wrote freakin epics!!! (way different than folk songs). 

Plus maybe his stuff explores similar romantic themes as Yeats or Keats or whatever, and that's why scholars compared him to them. I mean the way I've read about it, they were saying stuff like, oh it's ok he got the award because he's as good as Yeats or Keats. For the love of yo yo ma can I get a pot smokin' angel and some black Sabbath in there (OK, they're probably not as deep as Dylan, but come on. Pot smoking angels on the album cover. Milton would bust a nut).

I think if you look at the original intent of Alfred Nobel, the prize was meant to reward those who have contributed directly to the betterment of humanity. That's why there's no Nobel for math - it's seen as too abstract (not because Nobel's wife ran away with a mathematician...). While economics wasn't mentioned in Nobel's will, it was added later (but is not technically  still called a 'Nobel' prize) with the argument that economic policy has a huge impact on people's lives.
So seen that way, literature that has a positive impact on people's lives deserves the Nobel, regardless of its technical merits. Dylan's poetry is not technically credible, but his songs have influenced a generation of people in the Anglosphere (primarily America and the UK). However, a better choice would have been the Peace prize, in my view.

Well, the more I think of it, the Nobel prize just seems stupid. I think it comes with crown jewels or rupees or something. Should be converted to a nonprofit that gives out grants.

What the hell does literature even mean? Why don't they just call it writing or something if they want to break down hierarchies?