All Along Bob Dylan All Along Bob Dylan: America and the World offers an important con- tribution to thinking about the artist and his work. Adding European and non-English-speaking contexts to the vibrant field of Dylan studies, the volume covers a wide range of topics and methodologies while deal- ing with the inherently complex and varied material produced or associ- ated with the iconic artist. The chapters, organised around three broad thematic sections (Geographies, Receptions and Perspectives), address the notions of audience, performance and identity, allowing to map out the structure of feeling and authenticity, both, in the case of the artist and his audience. Taking its cue from the collapse of the so-called high-/ low-culture split following from the Nobel Prize, the book explores the argument that Dylan (and all popular music) can be interpreted as litera- ture and offers discussions in the context of literary traditions, or visual culture and music. This contributes to a nuanced and complex portrayal of the seminal cultural phenomenon called Bob Dylan. Tymon Adamczewski, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the Department of Anglophone Literatures of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, where he teaches literary and cultural studies. His academic in- terests revolve around the critical discourses of contemporary human- ities, music and ecocriticism. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature 42 Death-Facing Ecology in Contemporary British and North American Environmental Crisis Fiction Louise Squire 43 Poetry and the Question of Modernity From Heidegger to the Present Ian Cooper 44 Apocalyptic Territories Setting and Revelation in Contemporary American Fiction Anna Hellén 45 Displaced Literature of Indigeneity, Migration, and Trauma Edited by Kate Rose 46 Masculinities in Austrian Contemporary Literature Strategic Evasion Matthias Eck 47 Transcending the Postmodern The Singular Response of Literature to the Transmodern Paradigm Edited by Jean-Michel Ganteau and Susana Onega 48 The Politics of Literature in a Divided 21st Century Katharina Donn 49 All Along Bob Dylan America and the World Edited by Tymon Adamczewski For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com All Along Bob Dylan America and the World Edited by Tymon Adamczewski First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Tymon Adamczewksi to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-23626-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-28086-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents List of Contributors vii Introduction: The “Thing” about Bob Dylan 1 TYMON ADAMCZEWSKI SECTION 1 Geographies 15 1 Bob Dylan’s Minnesota Roots 17 DAVID PICHASKE 2 At the Origins of the New Folk Star: Bob Dylan’s New York Period (1961–1963) 31 MAREK JEZIŃSKI 3 Dylan on Nostalgia: Idealising the Past and Paralysing the Present 47 STEPHEN DEWSBURY SECTION 2 Receptions 57 4 Bob Dylan and the Invasion of Mexico 59 TADEUSZ RACHWAŁ 5 Conspiring to Be Unknown; or, Is a Bob Dylan There? 71 AGNIESZKA PANTUCHOWICZ 6 Bob Dylan – The Unwilling Icon of the Counterculture 82 JERZY JARNIEWICZ vi Contents 7 The Polish Internet Discourse on Dylan 97 MARCIN MICHALAK SECTION 3 Perspectives 113 8 The Dylanesque Confluence of the Multitude: From Bob Dylan Inspired to Bob Dylan the Inspirer 115 DARIUSZ PESTKA 9 Dylan and Springsteen: Master and Follower Look at America 127 BOHDAN SZKLARSKI 10 Bob Dylan’s Character(s) on Screen 141 MARLENA HETMAN 11 The Geometry of Love and Lies: Re-Shaping Italian Literature through Dylan’s Lyrics 154 GIULIO CARLO PANTALEI Index 169 Contributors Tymon Adamczewski, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the Department of Anglophone Literatures of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, where he teaches literary and cultural studies. His academic interests revolve around the critical discourses of contemporary hu- manities, music and ecocriticism. Stephen Dewsbury is Senior Lecturer in the Philological Faculty at the University of Opole, Poland. His research and teaching expertise are in British Culture, Language and Literature. His writings have cov- ered an eclectic array of topics such as Cheshire dialect, RMS Titanic, post-colonial Ghana, the excesses of the conservative elite, public hanging in 18th- and 19th-century England, jingoistic attitudes to- wards Europe and the European Union, Monty Python and class, restoration of monarchy under the reign of Queen Anne, the death of Margaret Thatcher and the rhetoric of British bulldog imagery and symbolism. Marlena Hetman is a Ph.D. student at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland. Her research focuses on aesthetics of contradiction in the context of Sam Shepard’s family plays and Friedrich Nietzsche’s early insights into the origins of drama. She studies the interplay between philosophy, art, aesthetics and psychology. Since 2019, in co-operation with University of Gdansk, she has initiated interdisci- plinary conferences dedicated to the influence of art and philosophy on mental health with topics such as loneliness, authenticity, vulner- ability and freedom. Jerzy Jarniewicz (b. 1958 in Lowicz) is a Polish poet, translator and liter- ary critic, who is also Professor at University of Lodz, Poland, where he lectures in English. He has published twelve volumes of poetry, thirteen critical books on contemporary literature and literary trans- lation, and has written extensively for various journals, including Poetry Review, Irish Review and Cambridge Review. His most re- cent work is the anthology Six Irish Women Poets, which he selected viii Contributors and translated, and a collection of essays on the Counterculture of the Sixties. Marek Jeziński, Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland, is the Head of the Faculty of Communication, Media and Journalism. His main academic interests include social anthropology and contemporary popular culture. He is the author of 6 books and over 100 academic papers on political science, sociology, popular cul- ture, contemporary theatre and music. Marcin Michalak, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Po- land. His research interests concern rock music, hippie countercul- ture, popular music education, musical preferences with reference to the philosophy and sociology of education, artistic education as well as multi- and intercultural education. He is the author and co-author of a great deal of publications, including the books Music education in Poland. Diagnoses, debates, aspirations (with A. Białkowski, M. Grusiewicz, Warszawa 2010, in Polish), Rock music in the conscious- ness and education of grammar school youth (Toruń 2011, in Polish). Giulio Carlo Pantalei was born in Rome and graduated from University of Roma Tre with a thesis on P. P. Pasolini. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Italian Studies at the same institution and a Visiting Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge, after a period as a post- graduate researcher in 2014 at the University of Oxford. A writer and musician in a band called “Panta”, he collaborated with David Lynch Foundation in Italy, Paolo and Carlo Verdone, Pierpaolo Capovilla and Bono Vox’s ngo ONE. His research into the connection between the Italian Literature and the Anglo-American music came out Poesia in forma di Rock (2016) and is now at its second reissue. His cur- rent research examines the lyrics written by Italian writers, including Calvino, Pasolini and Moravia in the second half of the twentieth century. Agnieszka Pantuchowicz, Ph.D., is assistant professor at the SWPS Uni- versity of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland, where she teaches translation and literary studies. Her research interests are translation theory and cultural studies, comparative literature and feminist criticism. Dariusz Pestka, Ph.D., works at the Applied Linguistics Department of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz. His interests include English and American literature, with a special emphasis on Post-Romanticism, Aestheticism, Modernism and Post- modernism. His is also the author of numerous publications on Brit- ish and American cultures, particularly classical and popular music as well as on aspects of the history of visual arts. Contributors ix David Pichaske, who is two years younger than Bob Dylan, lives in Gran- ite Falls, Minnesota, and teaches Literature at Southwest Minnesota State University. He has published many articles and two dozen books on Midwest culture and music of the sixties, including Beowulf to Beatles: Approaches to Poetry (Free Press, 1972), A Generation in Motion: Popular Music and Culture in the Sixties (Schirmer Books, 1979), Late Harvest: Rural American Literature (Paragon House, 1991), Rooted: Seven Midwest Writers of Place (University of Iowa Press, 2006), Song of the North Country: A Midwestern Framework to the Songs of Bob Dylan (Continuum, 2010), and recently his mem- oir of a sixties child, Here I Stand (Ellis Press, 2015) and a collection of essays, Crying in the Wilderness (Ellis Press, 2016). Tadeusz Rachwał is Professor of English at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland, where he teaches literary and critical theory.