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E-book A God of Time and Space : New Perspectives on Bob Dylan and Religion

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Penilaian

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The present volume is a collection of essays aiming to shed new light on different aspects of the role of religion in Bob Dylan’s artistic output. The eight authors are all from Scandinavia, seven from Norway and one from Denmark. Norwegian Dylan-scholars will always remember when Dylan, at a concert in Oslo in 1998, compared Norway to where he grew up in Minnesota: “Well, I feel quite at home here, actually. I was born and raised in Minnesota, where the Vikings landed long before Colum-bus did” (Botvar, 2011, p. 166). In Chronicles Dylan remembers when his parents brought him to a political rally in Duluth’s Leif Erickson Park: “Leif Erickson was a Viking who was supposed to have come to this part of the country [Minnesota] way before the Pilgrims had ever landed in Plymouth Rock” (Dylan, 2004, p. 230).Few would dispute the fact that religion or religious traditions and the use of religious imagery have always played an important role in Dylan’s art-istry. However, the term “religion” is ambiguous and not easy to define. This ambiguity comes across in interviews with Dylan, where he uses the word in different ways, often with negative connotations. A critical attitude to the term and the whole concept of religion is also traceable in Dylan’s lyrics. The word appears in three of his own compositions. Two of these occurrences are from the mid-sixties, and one is from his gospel period in the late seventies. The word religion first appears in “Desolation Row” (1965), a song in which Dylan imagines modern Western culture as a ship of fools about to go down. He presents the listener with a variety of figures from West-ern literature, folklore and history. Among the many characters in this song is Shakespeare’s Ophelia, and she is as tragic a figure in Dylan’s lyr-ics as she is in Hamlet. She is looking for a sign of deliverance and fixes her hope upon the sign that in Genesis (9:13-17) indicates both the end of the flood sent to purge humankind and the beginning of a new covenant between God and humanity. For Ophelia religion is a profession, but not one that provides her with the answers she seeks. Her problem, or “sin”, is “her lifelessness”, which in Dylan’s text is paralleled by “her religion” in the preceding line. In other words, religion seems to be synonymous with death, and hinders Ophelia’s ability to see the symbol of hope, the great rainbow. Here “reli-gion” represents the opposite of deliverance and redemption; it will not save Ophelia from drowning. Using words from “It’s all right ma (I’m only bleeding)” one can say that Ophelia’s religion is not about busy being born, but rather busy dying.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

781.71 AAS a

Penerbit

USA : Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP (Nordic Open Access Scholarly Publishing)., 2019

Deskripsi Fisik

239hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9788202616540

Klasifikasi

781.71

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Christian Sacred Music

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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