Why did Nobel Prize in Literature award it to a musician?

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature this time. What really shocked everyone was not the so-called unpopular candidate, but that Bob Dylan was more famous as a musician (composer). In the impression of many people, he is not a writer who is famous for his traditional literary forms such as novels and poems.

Of course, Bob Dylan is definitely a textbook figure in the music industry. In 1960s, Bob Dylan and his rock music swept the world, and songs such as Gone with the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone are still widely sung. In the 1960s, the United States was in a chaotic era. The assassination of President Kennedy, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the feminist movement, the black movement led by Martin Luther King, the hippie movement, the sexual liberation movement and so on, all kinds of ideological trends prevailed in the United States. At the same time, it is also a period of cultural prosperity, with literary works represented by the "Beat Generation", post-modernism art, and rock music represented by Elvis Presley, Beatles and Rolling Stones. It was during this period that Bob Dylan became famous for his rock music. 1962, he released his first album of the same name, Bob Dylan. Different from the Beatles who caused the "British invasion" in the United States, Bob Dylan added more social thinking to his music works, and in his early days, he had an obvious style of protesting folk songs, which was closer to the times. Therefore, Bob Dylan was regarded as the spokesman of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, and was also widely regarded as the spokesman of the emerging rebellious culture in the United States at that time (although he himself denied it).

This time, Bob Dylan was able to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, largely because of his musical thinking. As the reason given by the Nobel Prize in Literature Committee said, "Bob Dylan brought a new poetic expression to the great American song tradition." In the mid-1960s, American intellectuals began to notice the literary value in Bob Dylan's works, and some critics even called him the greatest poet after Frost. 1976 Former US President Carter quoted a lot of Bob Dylan's poems in the presidential campaign and praised him as a "great American poet". 1990-65438+ 10 In October, the French Academy of Literature awarded Bob Dylan the "Outstanding Achievement Award in Literature and Art". 1996 and 2006 were also nominated by Nobel Prize in Literature. Bob Dylan closely followed the theme of the times in the content of his works and violently criticized the society through his own thinking, which coincides with the literary proposition that "literature is a fire" put forward by mario llosa, a Nobel Prize in Literature winner in 20 10. Rolling Stone magazine commented that "Bob Dylan's music seems to be a metaphor of our lives, which enriches our lives, allows us to reflect on our inner feelings and living conditions at any time, enhances our cognitive ability, and leads us to ignorance and unknowns". From this perspective, even the musician Bob Dylan deserves Nobel Prize in Literature.

As Sarah Dennis, Permanent Secretary of Science Department of Swedish Academy, said when answering whether Bob Dylan is not a literary writer in the traditional sense and whether this award means the expansion of literary scope, "If we look back at history, we will find that Homer and Sappho also wrote poems that should have been sung to music 5,000 years ago, and we are still reading and appreciating their works, so is Bob Dylan." There is literature in an era, the times are changing, and the carrier is also changing. People in China often say that Han Fu, Tang Poetry, Song Poetry and novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties are all good evidences, aren't they? We can treat the Nobel Prize in Literature winner and his "music literature" with a more inclusive attitude.