"Some borrowing going on"...Bob Dylan helps himself to some 1800s poetry

Who’s This Guy Dylan Who’s Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod?

By MOTOKO RICH
Published: September 14, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/arts/music/14dyla.html?ex=1158465600&en=2a3127fe5d97d05a&ei=5087%0A



Perhaps you’ve never heard of Henry Timrod, sometimes known as the poet laureate of the Confederacy. But maybe you’ve heard his words, if you’re one of the 320,000 people so far who have bought Bob Dylan’s latest album, “Modern Times,” which made its debut last week at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

It seems that many of the lyrics on that album, Mr. Dylan’s first No. 1 album in 30 years (down to No. 3 this week), bear some strong echoes to the poems of Timrod, a Charleston native who wrote poems about the Civil War and died in 1867 at the age of 39.

“More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours,” the 65-year-old Mr. Dylan sings in “When the Deal Goes Down,” one of the songs on “Modern Times.” Compare that to these lines from Timrod’s “Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night”:

A round of precious hours

Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked

And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers.

"Mr. Dineen said he would have been happy if Mr. Dylan had just
given Timrod credit for the lines. “Maybe it’s the teacher in
me. If I found out that he had done this in a research paper,
he’d be in big trouble.”"

That's why you are a second rate teacher Mr. Dineen and Dylan
is a poet.

LOVE and THEFT, duh HINT. Bob Dylan=Dylan Thomas another hint.

What does Dylan have to do provide an annotated bibliography for
these community college assistant professors?

Not only does Dylan have to draw the picture for these academic
nothings he has to provide the crayons.

No wonder Dylan hates interviews. Interviewers are just so shallow
and obvious. I feel for the man it must be infuriating having to
live in world filled with mediocrity.

even his very first album did it, this is nothing new, hell, what got dylan into performing was woody guthrie

so much of being a folk artist is to be one of the folk -- to quote those who have come before you, to include their voices

it's like a thread that runs through time

should every inch of the thread be covered in footnotes? oh come on! it insults the intelligence of the reader or listener to assume they are too stupid to hear the resonances

this guy thinks, yeah, i figured it out but the rest of you are too damn dumb so let's have it w. a footnote!

that's fairly arrogant if you ask me

dylan trusted us to figure it out

born to explain the world to lazy people.

You people would hardly be arguing same if some halfwit pop princess stole some Dylan metaphors as unabashedly as he's apparently taken from this poet. I guess if the thief is someone subculture jerkoffs are into, the theft is justifiable, and is an homage? No, there's got to be a better rationalization--wait, it's coming to me. Dylan just wanted to expose us to 19th century American poetry! How dare someone point out he lifted metaphors essentially whole from someone else--it was a coy reference, with Dylan winking at us the whole time, and not at all a thieving!

Did I do that right? :D

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But directly ripping off metaphors or imagery in someone's poetry is not cool. If someone catches you, that is. :D But then I don't like to hear Robert Plant squealing "squeeze my lemon" either, for many reasons, not all having to do with blatant ripoffery. :P

nor is it the first time he has. I think artists are capable of reading a lot of poerty, literature, etc. and an amalgam of those ideas, phrases, concepts, can creep into the work.

And I doubt that most of the deceased poets from that time have lawyers - or do they? ;)

What is the current academic thinking on this - I am far removed from the fray -

No one actually reads poetry anymore. Why not sing some of it?

daily poetry thread...

no harm in exposing more folks to it, though

when haven't folk singers lifted phrases from other sources and used them?

or the whole universe of poets, playwrites, and novelists?

there is such a thing as literary figures having a conversation with each other through their work.

look at picasso and matisse if you want a visual reference for this -- these two literally lifted from each other to carry on a very complicated conversation.

Musically, it's called "the folk process." Especially if it's not a matter of avoiding royalty payments to living artists. (Although too many musical pioneers had their publishing rights ripped off early on.)

Richard Farina reportedly wrote "Morgan the Pirate" about Dylan. www.richardandmimi.com/index.html

It's not bad that a long-dead poet might get some recognition.

last 2-3 weeks. Amazing how some people try to take down a successful artist.