LITMIR.BIZ

       A GUARDIAN AND INDEPENDENT BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2017

      ‘At last an expert classicist gets to grips with Bob Dylan. Richard Thomas takes us from Dylan’s high school Latin club to his haunting engagement with Ovid and Homer in recent albums. He carefully argues that Dylan’s poetry deserves comparison with Virgil’s – and Thomas, senior professor of Latin at Harvard and author of some of the most influential modern studies of Virgil, should know!’

      Mary Beard

      ‘A poignant blend of memoir, literary analysis through a classical lens, musicology and, above all, love. [Thomas] loves Dylan with a passion so selfless and so intense that it’s impossible to emerge from the book untouched’

       Guardian

      ‘Accessible and enjoyable … Richard F. Thomas’s elegant, charming book offers something for everyone – not just the super-fans’

       Independent

      ‘The coolest class on campus’

       New York Times

      ‘The book joyously bounces from topic to topic, mixing anecdotes about Dylan’s creative process, historical concerts, and wry press conferences with penetrating literary critique – and no shortage of Thomas’ own personal recollections of bonding with Dylan’s music. A highly informed, yet intimately personal celebration of one of our most important living writers – not despite, but because of the medium in which he writes’

       NPR

      ‘Thomas’ outstanding, eminently readable and beautifully bound work, answers that question in relation to his subject with a resounding ‘Yes’. Dylan matters. Emphatically’

       Tribune

      ‘Why Dylan Matters is about the work of an astonishingly great artist and performer, and how that work echoes the great Greek and Roman poet-performers – Homer, Virgil, Horace, Catullus and Ovid – whose five voices are heard in Dylan’s work. Richard Thomas teaches us, with loving and passionate authority, how he hears in these poems the voices and music of these great ancient poets; he teaches us how poems listen and hear and speak to other poems through all time’

      David Ferry, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry

      ‘Richard Thomas has created a monument to Bob Dylan – and, also, a Rosetta Stone. The erudite and politically engaged Thomas is the perfect guide through the wondrous mystery of Dylan’s genius’

      James Carroll, author of Constantine’s Sword

      ‘Secures Dylan’s place in a pantheon of literary heroes from Virgil to Eliot. A critical breakthrough that makes a masterful case for why Dylan is the bard of our times’

      Andrew McCarron,

      author of Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan

      ‘Listen to Bob Dylan in performance. But read this book for help on how to hear his lyrics’

       Irish Examiner

      ‘An enormously rewarding academic study of Dylan’s significance and significations … Thomas’s classicist’s training, sharp ear for allusion and taste for detailed research give his book a very special and distinctive allure’

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