Dylan's Autobiography of a Vocation

Louis A. Renza is an Emeritus Professor of English at Dartmouth College, USA. He has published critical works on various US writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Stephen Crane, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway and Wallace Stevens. Starting in the 1970s and through 2010, he taught a Dartmouth course on Bob Dylan’s lyrics. He also directed a 2006 conference at Dartmouth College on Dylan’s works, and has published articles on them that include, respectively, critical discussions of such songs as “Went to See the Gypsy” and “Simple Twist of Fate.”

• DedicationPrefaceAcknowledgmentsTable of ContentsDylan 1965IntroductionChapter One: Return to Me: Bringing It All Back Home Chapter Two: Rebel Without a Cause II: Highway 61 RevisitedChapter Three: Reflections on Self-Reflections: Blonde on Blonde Chapter Four: Fire Down Below: The Basement Tapes Chapter Five: Confessions of a Cowboy Angel: John Wesley Harding EpilogueEndnotes BibliographyPermission AcknowledgmentsIndex

Louis Renza has performed a miracle of sorts, getting to the heart of Dylan’s visionary quest for meaning by focusing on his ‘vocational dualism,’ his endless shuttle between the public and private realms. He shows us again and again that the movement toward an ideal or real presence is defined by its drive toward subjectivity, and that a double sense accompanies every assertion, as Dylan keeps an eye on his vocation, which becomes his ‘primary artistic tableau.’ I’ve read countless books on Dylan, but this is the best of them: a stunning narrative of Dylan’s major accomplishment. Renza takes us deep into Dylan, and he proves a wise and infinitely patient guide.