Not dark yet, but it’s getting there

It was a strange scene. An audience of whiskery Classics enthusiasts listening to a lecture about the influence of Homer and Virgil on Bob Dylan, which is considerable – Sir Christopher Ricks has written a 500 page book on the subject. At the end of the lecture, this delightful and odd society moved to invite Dylan to its ranks, so impressed was it by his learning and art. A procession of old boys then shuffled out of Guildhall humming the tune to ‘Lonesome Day Blues’ (Dylan’s most Virgilian song), realising that they could have misspent their youth after all. It was a colourfully comic sight, dimmed by pathos.

That was some years ago; now the movement to canonise Dylan as poet has strengthened. A gaggle of language dons marked Dylan’s 70th birthday by codifying the allusions, assonance and caesura in his lyrics. They scrutinised his words with the close attention reserved for Shakespeare, Milton et al.