鮑勃迪倫 既是歌手也是詩人

I don’t call myself a poet because I don’t like the word.

我不說自己是個詩人，因爲我不喜歡這個詞。

I’m a trapeze artist, Bob Dylan said in 1965.

我是一個空中飛人表演者，鮑勃•迪倫(Bob Dylan)在1965年說。

Others agreed, not about the trapeze artistry but his poetry.

其他人同意他的說法——不是關於空中飛人表演，而是關於詩歌的那部分。

The official appearance of Bob Dylan’s Tarantula is not a literary event because Dylan is not a literary figure, the New York Times intoned when his first book, a surrealist mix of poems and prose, was published in 1971.

鮑勃•迪倫的《狼蛛》(Tarantula)的正式問世，不是一個文學事件，因爲迪倫不是一個文學界人物，《紐約時報》(New York Times)在他的第一本書、混合詩歌和散文的超現實主義著作在1971年出版的時候鄭重評論道。

Even with yesterday’s award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Dylan, the argument rumbles on.

即使昨天迪倫被授予諾貝爾文學獎，這一觀點依然存在。

The Swedish Academy that judges the prize praised the 75-year-old for creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

評獎的瑞典文學院(Swedish Academy)稱讚現年75歲的迪倫在美國歌曲的偉大傳統中開創了新的詩性表達。

But in the colourful words of the novelist Irvine Welsh, it is an ill-conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.

但小說家歐文•韋爾什(Irvine Welsh)語出驚人，稱這是從語無倫次的老嬉皮士發臭的前列腺扭下來的一個欠妥的懷舊獎項。

Dylan’s literary links are numerous.

迪倫與文學有無數的聯繫。

He borrowed poet Dylan Thomas’s name when he changed his own from Robert Zimmerman.

他的本名是羅伯特•齊默爾曼(Robert Zimmerman)，後來借用詩人迪倫•托馬斯(Dylan Thomas)的名字爲自己改了名。

In his 2004 memoir Chronicles, he describes himself digging like an archaeologist through the book-lined shelves of a Greenwich Village apartment in 1961 when he was 19, voraciously consuming everything from Balzac to Thucydides.

在他2004年出版的自傳《編年史》（Chronicles，較早的一箇中文版名爲《像一塊滾石》）中，他描述在1961年，19歲的自己在格林威治村(Greenwich Village)一間公寓裏擺滿了書的書架上像考古學家一樣發掘，如飢似渴地閱讀從巴爾扎克(Balzac)到修昔底德(Thucydides)的一切書籍。

References to writers and texts are embedded in his dense, allusive, punning lyrics.

他的歌詞內容龐雜、充滿典故和雙關，穿插着諸多對作家和文本的引用。

You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go rhymes its hokey country-and-western title with Arthur Rimbaud, the 19th-century French symbolist poet and an important influence on Dylan’s writing.

歌曲《如果你離開，你將讓我孤單》(You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)故作傷感的西部鄉村風格歌名，跟19世紀法國象徵主義詩人阿蒂爾•蘭波(Arthur Rimbaud)的姓押韻——蘭波對迪倫的作詞有重要影響。

A line from his song Maybe Someday about hostile cities and unfriendly towns echoes the poem Journey of the Magi by the modernist TS Eliot (And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly).

他那首《或許某一天》(Maybe Someday)中的一句歌詞提到的敵意的城市和不友好的城鎮(hostile cities and unfriendly towns)，與現代主義詩人T•S•艾略特(TS Eliot)的詩歌《麥琪之旅》(Journey of the Magi)中的一句（而城市充滿敵意，城鎮並不友好，And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly）類似。

His omnivorous habit of absorbing information and recasting it in lyrics has led to accusations of copyism.

迪倫有廣泛吸收各種信息、然後稍加改動寫進歌詞裏的習慣，這種習慣招致了有關抄襲的指責。

Bob is not authentic at all, his 1960s contemporary Joni Mitchell complained in 2010. He’s a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake.

鮑勃根本就不是原創，他在上世紀60年代的同時代人喬尼•米切爾(Joni Mitchell)在2010年控訴道，他是一個剽竊者，他的名字和聲音都是假的。

Everything about Bob is a deception.

有關鮑勃的一切都是一場騙局。

Others argue, as per the New York Times’ review of Tarantula, that songs are not the same as poems.

根據《紐約時報》對《狼蛛》的書評，另一些人則認爲，歌曲和詩歌是不同的。

Their verses exist to be sung, not read in silence.

歌曲中的小節是爲了被歌唱出來，而不是爲了讓人們默讀。

A key distinction is the use of rhyme.

一個關鍵的區別是押韻的使用。

In poetry, rhyming fell out of favour during early 20th-century modernism, never to recover.

在詩歌中，押韻在20世紀初的現代主義風潮中不再受到青睞，並且再也沒有恢復過。

But Dylan has a lyricist’s love of rhyme: Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,/From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.

但身爲作詞人，迪倫有一種對押韻的喜愛：白癡的風，像一個圓圈圍着我的頭顱吹着，/從大古力水壩到國會大廈("Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,/From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol")。

In 1991 the British playwright David Hare sparked a Keats versus Dylan punch-up between high and popular culture when he declared the Romantic poet was unquestionably a better writer than the singer.

1991年，英國劇作者戴維•黑爾(David Hare)宣稱浪漫主義詩人濟慈毫無疑問比迪倫寫得好，因而在高雅文化和流行文化之間引發了一場濟慈(Keats)對迪倫的干戈。

But the comparison erects barriers that Dylan’s songs refuse to recognise.

但這種比較樹立的壁壘是迪倫的歌曲拒絕承認的。

To the aspiring young songwriter I say disregard all the current stuff, forget it . . . read John Keats, Melville, listen to Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie, Dylan advised in 1985.

對有抱負的年輕歌曲作者，我要說的是拋棄一切當下的作品，忘掉它們……讀一讀約翰•濟慈(John Keats)，梅爾維爾(Melville)，聽一聽羅伯特•約翰遜(Robert Johnson)和伍迪•格思裏(Woody Guthrie)，迪倫在1985年建議道。

There is more to literature than words on a page, just as there is more to music than notes on a sheet.

文學不僅僅是一張紙上的文字，就如音樂也不僅僅是一張樂譜上的音符一樣。

This year’s Nobel laureate is the slipperiest in the prize’s history, the least easy to pin down, but no less deserving than his predecessors.

今年的諾貝爾文學獎得主是諾獎歷史上最讓人難以捉摸的，最不容易確定的，但卻並不遜於他的前輩。

As Dylan sang in 1964, with a sardonic twang: Yippee! I’m a poet, and I know it/Hope I don’t blow it.

就如迪倫在1964年用諷刺的鼻音所唱的：噫！我是個詩人，我知道這一點/希望我不會搞砸。