REPORT ON COLLOQUIUM, 'BOB DYLAN'S PERFORMANCE ARTISTRY', CAEN UNIVERSITY 10-12 MARCH 05
christopher rollason
2005
Report by Christopher Rollason
Bob Dylan conferences have been a rarity in the academic environment, and,
unless the author of this report is mistaken, until now none had ever been
held outside the English-speaking world (and precious few inside it). The
three-day colloquium held at the University of Caen (Normandy, France) from
10 to 12 March 2005 thus marks a remarkable step forward in Dylan studies
whose importance can scarcely be measured in words, and the organiser,
Catharine Mason, Associate Professor of English at the host university,
deserves the highest of praise for such an initiative. The event brought
together Dylan specialists and experts in related fields from France,
Britain, Canada and the US, and enjoyed the support of the US consulate in
Rennes (and even the presence of the Consul at the opening). It received
generous coverage, with a group photo of the participants, in the Caen
edition of the newspaper Ouest France. Papers were given in both English and
French.
The vantage points from which Dylan’s work was examined included the
literary, the ethnological, the linguistic and the musicological. The
literary note was sounded loud and clear in the opening paper, delivered by
Gordon Ball, Professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute, on
‘Dylan and the Nobel’. Professor Ball – who is better placed than anyone to
speak on the subject, as the person who has nominated Dylan for the Nobel
Prize in Literature every year since 1996 - gave a persuasive overview of
Dylan’s literary qualities, stressing how his poetry arises out of oral
performance and how he has added more memorable phrases to the language than
anyone since Kipling: if the Nobel rubric includes the criteria that the
recipient must have produced work of an ‘idealistic tendency’ and have
conferred a major benefit on humanity, Dylan’s output, Gordon Ball believes,
unquestionably qualifies. He added that the work of an earlier Nobel
laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, includes a very considerable number of songs.
The literary approach was further validated by Christopher Lebold of the
Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, who summarised the findings of his
recently awarded Ph.D. on the poetics of Dylan and Leonard Cohen and how
their work demonstrates the possibilities of a literary reading of song
texts. Dylan’s work was taken into the realms of intertextuality by two
other speakers. Richard Thomas, Professor of Classics at Harvard University,
explored links and analogies between Dylan and the Greco-Roman literary
tradition, from the oral delivery associated with Homer and the Roman
‘rhapsodes’ to the direct and indirect references to Virgil on ‘”Love and
Theft’”. Professor Thomas stressed how, despite his elite reputation today,
Virgil’s work was in his time linked to more popular elements, and predicted
that in two hundred years’ time Dylan will be considered a classic and a
part of high-register literature. France-based translator, literary editor
and critic Dr Christopher Rollason further broadened out the discussion with
an overview of Dylan’s relations with the Spanish-speaking world, examining
the reception of his work in Spain and Latin America and its translation
into Spanish, and suggesting parallels with a number of Spanish-language
poets and a very probable direct influence of the poetry of Federico García
Lorca. Translation and reception issues also featured in the paper by
Nicholas Froeliger, Associate Professor of English Translation at the
University of Paris VII, who offered a detailed examination of
French-language cover versions of Dylan, notably in the recordings of Hugues
Aufray and Serge Kerval.
Ethnology dominated in the paper by Emmanuel Désveaux, Professor of
Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris),
who suggested unexpected connections between Dylan’s imagery and Native
American traditions. The ethnological and the musicological fused in a
number of contributions. Catharine Mason provided insight into Dylan’s
creative use of blues conventions, focusing on his cover of Blind Willie
McTell’s ‘Broke Down Engine’; Rob Bowman, Professor of Music at York
University, Toronto – a widely experienced musicologist who is currently
compiling a 6-CD set by The Band which will include ‘new’ Dylan material –
also examined the African-American dimension, comparing Dylan’s version of
‘See That My Grave Is Kept Clean’ with Blind Lemon Jefferson’s original and
arguing that the earliest Dylan was far more under the African-American than
the Guthrie influence. In impressive scholarly detail, Todd Harvey,
specialist at the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress and
author of the study ‘The Formative Dylan’, traced the complex pre-Dylan
history of ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’; and Jeremy Price, Associate Professor
of English at the University of Poitiers, shed new light on the influence on
early Dylan of the Anglo-Scottish and Irish ballads (surely it was news to
most that ‘I Pity the Poor Immigrant’ takes its tune from a ballad called
‘Come All Ye Tramps and Hawkers’).
Other papers focused on linguistic and musicological aspects of Dylan’s
work, using perspectives encompassing the stylistic, the sociolinguistic and
the performative. Jean-Charles Khalifa, also of the University of Poitiers,
where he is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics, presented the
often surprising results of a corpus-based lexical and syntactic analysis of
Dylan’s lyrics (we learned, for instance, that Dylan uses the word ‘mind’
far more than the native-speaker average). Mike Daley, musician and doctoral
research scholar at York University, Toronto and author of the book ‘The
Four Voices of Bob Dylan’, looked at speech intonation in Dylan’s vocal
performance, homing in on the second stanza of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’; and
Keith Negus, Professor of Musicology at Goldsmith’s (University of London),
examined the phenomenon of listening to Dylan from a series of musicological
and sociological perspectives, with the aim of helping redress what he felt
was an over-emphasis in much Dylan criticism on lyrics rather than music.
The range of approaches was extended into the realm of cinema by Laure
Bouquerel, doctoral research scholar at the University of Caen, who made use
of ‘Don’t Look Back’ to consider the ideological construction of the ‘star
system’ and Bob Dylan’s problematic relationship with it. Other media were
represented by two exhibitions, of Dylan-inspired work by Louisiana
photographer Robert Borne, and of Dylan lyrics transposed into Chinese
calligraphy by the artist Hong Zhou (who is to be congratulated on her
imaginativeness!)
Music is where it all starts, and the colloquium’s strong academic side was
no obstacle to the presence of two excellent musicians. Georgia-born
singer-songwriter Steve Young, best-known for his beautiful song ‘Seven
Bridges Road’ as covered by Joan Baez and the Eagles, played extracts from
the traditional repertoire, his own and Dylan’s; and the conference wound up
on a high note with the appearance in person of onetime Dylan associate
Charlie McCoy. Charlie told an entranced public how he played guitar on
‘Desolation Row’ and harmonica on ‘Obviously Five Believers’, how all of
‘John Wesley Harding’ was recorded in nine and a half hours, and much more
from the annals of Dylan lore, some of which was unknown to even the most
hardcore fans present. Academia met realia as the event climaxed to a
triumphant close. The challenge will now be for Dylan scholars to build
further on the success of this colloquium and help make wider sections of
the public aware of the enormous interest and potential, right across the
disciplinary range, of Bob Dylan’s work as a subject of academic study. The
atmosphere of warmth and sharing created at Caen was such that, ‘just as
sure as we’re living’, we can be sure that those who took part in this
ground-breaking event will be equal to the challenge, and will rise to it
joyfully, well before ‘Gabriel blows his horn’!
Note: The colloquium website is at: <www.unicaen.fr/musa/bob_dylan/>. Those
interested in the scholarly analysis of Dylan's work may also wish to visit
the Bob Dylan Critical Corner site at: <
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html>.
--
*
'Dignity: never been photographed' - Bob Dylan
Christopher Rollason
M.A. Cambridge, Ph.D. York
Metz, France
Bibliography: www.seikilos.com.ar/biblio.pdf
Editorial board member, Atlantic Literary Review (Delhi)
http://atlantys.homeip.net/perso/atlanticliteraryreview/
Editor/contributor, Atlantic Publishers (Delhi) - see www.vedamsbooks.com
CO-EDITOR: Bob Dylan Critical Corner -
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html
Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate- www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html
VISIT: Rosarita Cuccoli: www.rosaritacuccoli.com/
Nicola Menicacci: www.nicolamenicacci.com/
Leandro Fanzone: www.seikilos.com.ar/
Carla Vanessa: CREACIÓN LITERARIA: www.geocities.com/yo.carla/
Dora Sales Salvador: 'Puentes sobre el mundo: Cultura, traducción y forma
literaria en las narrativas de transculturación de José María Arguedas y
Vikram Chandra' -
Bern: Peter Lang: www.peterlang.com/all/index.cfm
Reseña: www.seikilos.com.ar/DoraPuentes_es.pdf
Eigil Mřller
your links & hope that some of these papers will be available to the public
in print
regards, Eigil
"christopher rollason" <roll...@9online.fr> skrev i en meddelelse
news:d1knpt$64m$1...@aphrodite.grec.isp.9tel.net...
Alex Godbold
regards,
alex godbold.
"Eigil Møller" <ei...@postkasse.org> wrote in message news:<423e9852$0$654$edfa...@dread16.news.tele.dk>...
christopher rollason
no definite arrangements yet. When I know more I
will certainly post on rmd.
CR
--
*
'Dignity never been photographed' - Bob Dylan
Christopher Rollason
M.A. Cambridge, Ph.D. York
Metz, France
Bibliography: www.seikilos.com.ar/biblio.pdf
Editorial board member, Atlantic Literary Review (Delhi)
http://atlantys.homeip.net/perso/atlanticliteraryreview/
Editor/contributor, Atlantic Publishers (Delhi) - see www.vedamsbooks.com
CO-EDITOR: Bob Dylan Critical Corner -
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html
Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate- www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html
VISIT: Rosarita Cuccoli: www.rosaritacuccoli.com/
Nicola Menicacci: www.nicolamenicacci.com/
Leandro Fanzone: www.seikilos.com.ar/
Carla Vanessa: CREACIÓN LITERARIA: www.geocities.com/yo.carla/
Dora Sales Salvador: 'Puentes sobre el mundo: Cultura, traducción y forma
literaria en las narrativas de transculturación de José María Arguedas y
Vikram Chandra' -
Bern: Peter Lang: www.peterlang.com/all/index.cfm
Reseña: www.seikilos.com.ar/DoraPuentes_es.pdf
"Alex Godbold" <visib...@yahoo.ca> a écrit dans le message news:
d2bdf8cf.0503...@posting.google.com...
christopher rollason
1) The idea of the Dylan-Kilping connection mentioned by Prof. Gordon Ball
originates with in Professor Daniel Karlin of University College, London;
2) Nicolas Froeliger's name should be spelt thus, i.e. *Nicolas*
CR
--
*
'Dignity never been photographed' - Bob Dylan
Christopher Rollason
M.A. Cambridge, Ph.D. York
Metz, France
Bibliography: www.seikilos.com.ar/biblio.pdf
Editorial board member, Atlantic Literary Review (Delhi)
http://atlantys.homeip.net/perso/atlanticliteraryreview/
Editor/contributor, Atlantic Publishers (Delhi) - see www.vedamsbooks.com
CO-EDITOR: Bob Dylan Critical Corner -
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html
Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate- www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html
VISIT: Rosarita Cuccoli: www.rosaritacuccoli.com/
Nicola Menicacci: www.nicolamenicacci.com/
Leandro Fanzone: www.seikilos.com.ar/
Carla Vanessa: CREACIÓN LITERARIA: www.geocities.com/yo.carla/
Dora Sales Salvador: 'Puentes sobre el mundo: Cultura, traducción y forma
literaria en las narrativas de transculturación de José María Arguedas y
Vikram Chandra' -
Bern: Peter Lang: www.peterlang.com/all/index.cfm
Reseña: www.seikilos.com.ar/DoraPuentes_es.pdf
"christopher rollason" <roll...@9online.fr> a écrit dans le message news:
d1knpt$64m$1...@aphrodite.grec.isp.9tel.net...
(...)
christopher rollason
The idea of the Dylan-Kipling connection mentioned by Prof. Gordon Ball
originates with Professor Daniel Karlin of University College, London.
--
*
'Dignity never been photographed' - Bob Dylan
Christopher Rollason
M.A. Cambridge, Ph.D. York
Metz, France
Bibliography: www.seikilos.com.ar/biblio.pdf
Editorial board member, Atlantic Literary Review (Delhi)
http://atlantys.homeip.net/perso/atlanticliteraryreview/
Editor/contributor, Atlantic Publishers (Delhi) - see www.vedamsbooks.com
CO-EDITOR: Bob Dylan Critical Corner -
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html
Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate- www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html
VISIT: Rosarita Cuccoli: www.rosaritacuccoli.com/
Nicola Menicacci: www.nicolamenicacci.com/
Leandro Fanzone: www.seikilos.com.ar/
Carla Vanessa: CREACIÓN LITERARIA: www.geocities.com/yo.carla/
Dora Sales Salvador: 'Puentes sobre el mundo: Cultura, traducción y forma
literaria en las narrativas de transculturación de José María Arguedas y
Vikram Chandra' -
Bern: Peter Lang: www.peterlang.com/all/index.cfm
Reseña: www.seikilos.com.ar/DoraPuentes_es.pdf
"christopher rollason" <roll...@9online.fr> a écrit dans le message news:
d1knpt$64m$1...@aphrodite.grec.isp.9tel.net...
T.V. Webb
Since you're plugged into the academic study of His Bobship, do you
know whether anybody in the ivory minaret has made the Dylan-Omar
Khayyam connection? It would be interesting to see how professors of
literature or cultural studies or whatever it is interpret the Rubaiyat
and what Bob was trying to put across in Absolutely Sweet Marie.