Performed Literature: Words and Music by Bob Dylan Review

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(More customer reviews)I've read most of the books about Dylan out there - this one's the best. Bowden argues that dylan's lyrics cannot be thoughtfully analyzed without also considering the music and the performance - thus the title, "Performed Literature". Bowden's writing is clear, forceful, and engaging. She uses many examples to back up her points. Bowden is an academic, so there is fair amount of jargon thrown in, and part of the book does drag a bit, but all in all, this book is a must read for the serious dylan fan. (by the way, this is not a biography, so don't expect anything of that nature)

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Bob Dylan is not a poet. He is a singer-songwriter, a performing artist. The unit of his art, as collected and documented by his intended audience, is the live performance. Right now, no existing technological tool can give researchers ready access to his entire corpus of work. Revised from the author's Ph.D. dissertation (UC Berkeley, 1978) and again from its first edition (Indiana UP, 1982), Performed Literature develops a methodology for close analysis of verbal art that is heard, not seen, using as comparative examples 24 performances of 11 songs by Bob Dylan. The second edition adds a preface, two major appendices and one minor one, and a detailed index.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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