You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way: late style and memory in Bob Dylan's recent work

Abstract

This thesis provides an analysis of Bob Dylan’s recent work (1997-present), demonstrating the many ways in which this work operates as a cohesive and distinct late period. The thesis examines the thematic and stylistic elements of the recent work, in both the songs recorded during this time, as well as in his output in other mediums, including his memoir, Chronicles Volume One, and the film Masked and Anonymous. Though there is wide critical consensus as to the quality of the recent work, this is the first study of this length and the first attempt to analyse how the work functions as a defined late period in depth. The thesis discusses the implications of defining a section of an artist’s career as a late period, asking what biographical, cultural and aesthetic questions are raised by this definition. It also explores how, in his reflective and investigative engagement with the history of his own career and the wider world, the recent work is characterised by an extensive programme of quotation and allusion. This programme draws on and synthesises an expansive range of musical and literary works, and also invites reflection on the way the late period connects with, or differs from, his own earlier work. Moreover, certain songs from Dylan’s recent career, which will be examined in depth, demonstrate his interest in the way American popular music, his own work included, can be seen as a historical ‘quotation’ of black musical culture. Overall this thesis argues that this is a period in which the artist, Bob Dylan, once so associated with youthful exuberance and Protean changeability has settled into a reflective and considered mode. In this, his late period, Dylan has turned back to interrogate his own past, his musical and literary influences, and his place within the twin canons of popular music and American literature.