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  • Dylan participated in MTV's long-running "Unplugged" series in 1994.

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    Dylan participated in MTV's long-running "Unplugged" series in 1994.

  • Dylan signed with Columbia Records in 1961 and is still...

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    Dylan signed with Columbia Records in 1961 and is still releasing albums under the label, save for a brief stint on Asylum in 1973.

  • While topical Dylan gets all the attention, lovelorn Dylan cuts...

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    While topical Dylan gets all the attention, lovelorn Dylan cuts to the bone with compositions like "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" off of "Blood on the Tracks."

  • Scorsese helmed the documentary film No Direction Home. Not a...

    Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

    Scorsese helmed the documentary film No Direction Home. Not a comprehensive look at Dylan's career (it only covers his arrival in New York to his motorcycle accident), the film features interviews with Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Suze Rotolo, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Dave Van Ronk.

  • Dylan won the Academy Award for Best Song in 2001...

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    Dylan won the Academy Award for Best Song in 2001 with "Things Have Changed" from the "Wonder Boys" soundtrack.

  • Dylan first gained recognition in the coffee houses of New...

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    Dylan first gained recognition in the coffee houses of New York's Greenwich Village.

  • Dylan sang alongside Joan Baez at the Lincoln Memorial during...

    Rowland Scherman / Getty Images

    Dylan sang alongside Joan Baez at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at this event.

  • Bob Dylan was one of the Kennedy Center Honorees in...

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    Bob Dylan was one of the Kennedy Center Honorees in 1997 alongside Lauren Bacall, and Edward Villella, Jessye Norman and Charlton Heston.

  • The protest song and subsequent benefit concert increased public awareness...

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    The protest song and subsequent benefit concert increased public awareness around the imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Charged with a triple murder, Carter's trial was marred with accusations of racism and evidence tampering. In 1988, all charges were dropped against Carter.

  • Dylan's musical idol. Dylan traveled to New York in 1961...

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    Dylan's musical idol. Dylan traveled to New York in 1961 to visit the "This Land is Your Land" songwriter in the hospital. He was suffering from Huntington's disease.

  • Dylan's real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman.

    Matt Sayles / AP

    Dylan's real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman.

  • "Don't Look Back," the penultimate music documentary directed by D....

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    "Don't Look Back," the penultimate music documentary directed by D. A. Pennebaker follows Dylan on his 1965 U.K. tour. The film chronicles the end of Dylan and Joan Baez's romantic relationship and showcases his brutal treatment of the unsuspecting media.

  • Peter, Paul and Mary had a hit with their cover...

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    Peter, Paul and Mary had a hit with their cover of "Blowin' in the Wind." The song also ushered in an era of Dylan's topical, protest songs.

  • Dylan puts down his trusty acoustic guitar and debuts his...

    Photo by Alice Ochs/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    Dylan puts down his trusty acoustic guitar and debuts his new electric sound at the stoic Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to a barrage of booing and heckling from the audience.

  • Dylan eschewed his Jewish upbringing and became a born-again Christian,...

    Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

    Dylan eschewed his Jewish upbringing and became a born-again Christian, releasing non-secular albums, "Slow Train Coming" and "Saved" in the early 80s.

  • Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during the...

    Rowland Scherman / Getty Images

    Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during the March on Washington civil rights rally, on Aug. 28, 1963.

  • In 1966 Dylan crashed his Triumph motorcycle, spurring rumors of...

    Pierre Godot / AP

    In 1966 Dylan crashed his Triumph motorcycle, spurring rumors of near-fatal injuries. While not as serious as first reported, Dylan used the opportunity to take a break from touring to raise a family and spend time at home in Woodstock, New York.

  • President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to...

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    President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bob Dylan in the East Room of the White House in 2012.

  • This romp of a song was first recorded with The...

    AP

    This romp of a song was first recorded with The Band during the legendary Basement Tapes sessions in 1967, but Manfred Mann beat Dylan to the punch and released their version in 1968.

  • Dylan's masterful break-up record, "Blood on the Tracks," features the...

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    Dylan's masterful break-up record, "Blood on the Tracks," features the scathing send-off "Idiot Wind." Coinciding with the separation from his wife Sara Lownds, Dylan is extra bitter.

  • Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform at the Newport Jazz...

    AP

    Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I. in 1963. They were considered the King and Queen of Folk Music.

  • More than 78,000 people attended the inaugural Farm Aid benefit...

    AP

    More than 78,000 people attended the inaugural Farm Aid benefit concert onSeptember 23, 1985 at the University of Illinois football stadium. Nelson was the driving force behind the 14-hour concert, which included more the 50 stars of country, rock, blues and bluegrass.

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Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate. In the book world’s equivalent of a Supreme Court ruling, the Nobel judges declared Thursday that Dylan is not just a rock star but a poet of the very highest order.

Dylan, 75, becomes the first musician in the 115-year history of the Nobel to win the prize in literature. He was honored for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

It is the ultimate ascension for the man who set off a lasting debate over whether lyrics, especially rock lyrics, can be regarded as art. Dylan, who gave the world “Like a Rolling Stone,” ”Blowin’ in the Wind” and dozens of other standards, now finds himself on a list that includes Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison and T.S. Eliot, whom Dylan referred to in his epic song “Desolation Row.”

“Congratulations to one of my favorite poets, Bob Dylan, on a well-deserved Nobel,” tweeted President Barack Obama, who in 2012 presented the singer-songwriter with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Dylan rarely gives interviews, and a representative said the star had no immediate comment. He is on tour and was scheduled to play in Las Vegas on Thursday night.

The startling announcement out of Stockholm was met with both euphoria and dismay.

Many fans already quote Dylan as if he were Shakespeare, there are entire college courses and scholarly volumes devoted to his songs, and judges work Dylan quotations into their legal opinions all the time, such as “The times they are a-changing” and “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

With this year’s Nobel announcement, many people, especially Americans, weren’t scratching their heads and asking “Who?!” the way they did after hearing the names of such winners as Patrick Modiano and J.M.G. Le Clézio.

Others, though, lamented a lost moment for books.

“An ill-conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies,” wrote “Trainspotting” novelist Irvine Welsh. “I totally get the Nobel committee,” tweeted author Gary Shteyngart. “Reading books is hard.” The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said some “real writers” probably aren’t pleased.

But several leading authors praised the news.

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison said in a statement that she was pleased and that Dylan was “an impressive choice.” Salman Rushdie, who has written songs with U2’s Bono, tweeted that Dylan is “the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. Great choice.” Perennial Nobel candidate Joyce Carol Oates tweeted that “his haunting music & lyrics have always seemed, in the deepest sense, literary.”

Dylan’s award also was welcomed by a venerable literary organization, the Academy of American Poets.

“Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in literature acknowledges the importance of literature’s oral tradition, and the fact that literature and poetry exists in culture in multiple modes,” executive director Jennifer Benka said in a statement.

Critics can argue whether “Visions of Johanna” is as literary as “Waiting for Godot,” but Dylan’s stature among musicians is unchallenged. He is the most influential songwriter of his time, who brought a new depth, range and complexity to rock lyrics and freed Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell and countless other artists to break out from the once-narrow boundaries of love and dance songs.

Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during the March on Washington civil rights rally, on Aug. 28, 1963.
Folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform during the March on Washington civil rights rally, on Aug. 28, 1963.

Dylan already was the only rock star to receive a Pulitzer Prize (an honorary one), and is, in fact, an author, too: He was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle prize for his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume One.”

He is the first American to win the Nobel literature prize since Morrison in 1993, and his award probably hurts the chances of such older American writers as Philip Roth and Don DeLillo, since the Nobel judges try to spread the honors around.

“Rather doubt Philip Roth and Don DeLillo wish they’d written “Mr. Tambourine Man” vs. AMERICAN PASTORAL and UNDERWORLD,” tweeted Roth biographer Blake Bailey, referring to acclaimed novels by Roth and DeLillo. “But sure, ok.”

Dylan’s life has been a hybrid of popular and literary influences. A native of Duluth, Minnesota, he worshipped Elvis Presley and James Dean as a boy, but also read voraciously and seemed to absorb virtually every style of American music.

His lyrics have referred to (and sometimes lifted from) the Bible, Civil War poetry and Herman Melville. He has contended that his classic “Blood on the Tracks” album was inspired by the stories of Anton Chekhov.

President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bob Dylan in the East Room of the White House in 2012.
President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bob Dylan in the East Room of the White House in 2012.

His songs can be snarling and accusatory (“Idiot Wind,” ”Positively 4th Street”); apocalyptic (“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”); dense and hallucinatory (“Desolation Row”); tender and wistful (“Visions of Johanna”); bracingly topical (“Hurricane” and “Only a Pawn in Their Game”); and enigmatic and absurdist (“Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”).

“Blowin’ in the Wind” was an instant protest anthem for the 1960s, yet sounded as if it had been handed down through the oral tradition from another century, with such lines as “How many times must the cannon balls fly before they’re forever banned?”

“Like a Rolling Stone,” his takedown of a rich and pampered young woman forced to fend for herself, was pronounced the greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. The six-minute recording from 1965 is regarded as a landmark that shattered the notion a hit song had to be three minutes.

His career has been such a complicated pastiche of elusive, ever-changing styles that it took six actors — including Cate Blanchett — to portray him in the 2007 movie based on his life, “I’m Not There.” He won an Oscar in 2001 for the song “Things Have Changed” and received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1991.

Dylan is the most unorthodox Nobel literature prize winner since 1997, when the award went to Italian playwright Dario Fo, whose works some say also need to be performed to be fully appreciated. By a sad coincidence, Fo died Thursday at 90.

The literature award was the last of this year’s Nobel Prizes to be announced. The six awards will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Associated Press

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