‘Those who enrich our
lives with the newfound art they forged.’
Virgil
In his book Why Dylan
Matters, Professor Richard F Thomas, writes of the poignant moment when Bob
Dylan looked at his Nobel prize medal for literature. He was there April 1st
2017, for two performances at Stockholm’s Waterfront at the start of a 28
concert tour.
The medal has the words by the poet Virgil inscribed round it -
“And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery.”
‘Music and poetry that would prove to be enduring, memorable
and meaningful to ages beyond their own. Dylan and the ancients explore the
essential question of what it means to be human.’
You
hurt the ones that I love best
And
cover up the truth with lies.
One
day you’ll be in the ditch,
Flies
buzzin around your eyes,
Blood
on your saddle.’
Idiot Wind, Bob Dylan
“When the arts are neglected
and obscured, people suffer from dullness of ignorance.” Alan Raich
In their book The Arts and the Nation,
Alan Raich, Alexander Moffat and John Purser examine the importance of all the
arts to the health of our national life.
Many see the rise of imperial nationalism, of say Nazi Germany, as a
imposition of unwanted values and a narrow prejudice. The antidote to unitary,
conformist, bigoted nationalism is “state regionalism” which is there in the arts of the Celts. “Which is why Scotland’s independence should explicitly and vigorously favour the constituent identities of the island archipelagos all the points of the compass, the diversities of language and culture, overlaps and contrast, all the territories of the nation.” Only possible through the arts. It is words, poetry, art and music that is left long after all the fluff and nonsense disappears....
