by Larry Fyffe
The ghostly poetry of Gothic Romanticist Edgar Allan Poe howls in the songs of Bob Dylan, in songs that depict psychological forces demonic and dark in conflict with those godly and light. In the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, there’s often a male individual tormented by memories of a young and innocent female companion gone.
Like Annabella Lee in her sepulchre by the sea, a personal paradise lost that is so traumatic it leads to dreams filled with images of hell:
Ah, dream too bright to last
Ah, starry hope!; that didst arise
But to be overcast ….
And all my days are trances
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy gray eye glances
And where thy footstep gleams –
In what ethereal dances
By what eternal stream
(Poe: To One In Paradise)
Read More at : http://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/4977
Bob Dylan reads The raven (E.A. Poe)
This article shows how the poetry and prose of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) cast a long shadow over the work of America’s greatest living songwriter, Bob Dylan (1941-). The work of both artists straddles the dividing-line between ‘high’ and ‘mass’ culture by pertaining to both: read through Poe, Dylan’s work may be seen as a significant manifestation of American Gothic. It is further suggested, in the context of nineteenthcentury and contemporary debates on alleged ‘plagiarism’, that the textual strategy of ‘embedded’ quotation, as employed by both Poe and Dylan, points up the need today for an open and inclusive model of intertextuality.
Read More at : https://www.atlantisjournal.org/old/ARCHIVE/31.2/2009Rollason.pdf
Poe is in Dylan’s song lyrics, too, and of all the writers Dylan’s used in his work, all the influences lurking there, Poe (along with Williams Shakespeare and Blake) is one of the most long-lived and consistent. The references Dylan makes to Poe don’t take an eagle eye to find — they’re in very plain view. “My love she’s like some raven /At my window with a broken wing,” (“Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” 1965); “Don’t put on any airs when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue” (“Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” also 1965)
Read More At : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-margaret-daniel/the-rhymers-club-part-one_b_3518754.html
TARANTULA & EDGAR ALLAN POE
BOB DYLAN’S “TEMPEST” – INTERTEXTUALITY, SHAKESPEARE AND EDGAR ALLAN POE
Bob Dylan: Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Many commentators have cited possible literary references, although they seem to be something of a stretch. “Rue Morgue Avenue” could be a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Rimbaud refers to himself as “Tom Thumb in a daze” in his poem, “My Bohemian Life (Fantasy)”. The poem, however, has little in common with the song, although it does have a guy playing a “lyre”, which is sorta like a guitar.
Read More At : http://www.bobdylancommentaries.com/highway-61-revisited/just-like-tom-thumbs-blues/