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Peter White's avatar

Wow. Another great essay. Your research is superb. I like the way you don't panic when faced with Dylan text that is like the intuitive strokes of paintbrush rather than a high resolution photograph and so has multiple readings (plus we are multitudes and have our own readings). Dylan.fm@fmc_dylan just posed some important lines for Christopher Ricks' Dylan's Vision of Sin on twitter (rumor has it your not "there" on twitter--good for you!) about the intuition of the artist, the pictoral and emotional picture, rather than the detailed intention. If you can't find the page numbers, I'll give it a try. Meanwhile, on the subject of stripping things down and the unsaid. Dylan was doing this from the early days. Ricks also points out no where does the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll mention black, negro or other references to African American. But we know! We know we the sudden realization that we know because of the history of racism. That is not just stripping down but actually a dramatic moment in hearing the song. And one other early song that hides and then tells: Boots of Spanish Leather, where the two voices, one stronger, one sadder, are not assigned a gender until the 7th stanza. Which voice is Dylan's? Usually it is the male who goes off to seek a fortune; many women friends have expressed surprise when they come upon "her" in that 7th stanza. And also in that song: the title gets us curious from the beginning. What do boots have to do with it? Is this a reference to the old song Gypsy Davie? And here Dylan creates meaning with an added seemingly unnecessary word. Not only Spanish Boots but Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather. For the boots MUST be genuine, just as the lovers calling each other "true" love suggests a genuine purity that hid an underlying split, the boots desired to try to fill the gap...and maybe to walk on away from there. The meaning of the title appears doesn't appear until the last line of the last stanza of the song.

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Julie Cohn's avatar

Graley

I wish I could be your student. There is so much information in this piece that I have never studied or overlaid on top of Dylan's work. My interpretation of Dylan is a one lane highway void of the Bible and great literature. I see him through the small lens of my life and understanding of human nature. Thank you for such an illuminating essay.

Happy New Year

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