Bob Dylan Annotated Bib Honneth, Axel. "Liberty's

Bob Dylan Annotated Bib Honneth, Axel. "Liberty's Entanglements: Bob Dylan and His Era." Philosophy Social Criticism. Sage Publications. 36:77. 2010. 777-783. Print. This article acts as a panegyric to Bob Dylan, describing him as representing "a hardly imaginable synthesis, combining the longings of a social romantic, the pride and arrogance of an individualist outsider, the derision of a satirist and the bitterness of an apocalyptic prophet" (777). Honneth then goes on to describe how Dylan fits each of these roles.

He likens Dylan to something greater than a simple songwriter or performer, but like a prophet or great spokesman for a generation. Art, he explains, has the ability to transcend its cultural moment and speak to a greater truth than has heretofore been understood. All artists, he states, have made a contribution to this popular culture. Dylan, however has the ability to include subtle messages of autonomy and freedom, unlike many of his cohorts.

Honneth's work is useful in a scholarly research paper because is defines Bob Dylan in terms of his cultural moment. He defines Dylan as a man working above the abilities of those who were producing music in the same time as his own. This paper defines Dylan in terms of comparison with other artists. What Honneth specifically focuses on is Dylan's ability to evoke strong emotions, even when that emotion is apathy, through his writings. He shows how Dylan achieves these calls to emotion and calls to action.

When writing an analytical paper, the writer always looks for pathos, logos, and ethos. Honneth describes in great detail exactly how Dylan uses these three things to prove his arguments. Mellers, Wilfrid. "God, Modality and Meaning in Some Recent Songs of Bob Dylan." Popular Music 1. Cambridge University Press. 1981. 142-157. Print. In this article, Mellers defines Bob Dylan as a folk artist. He makes the assertion that Dylan's works are based on a variety of cultural influences and that is what makes him a folk artist.

The article goes on to compare Dylan to several important roles in different cultural communities, including a Shaman. The essential thesis of this piece is that Dylan's music is of such importance that it speaks not only for his generation, but for all generations and that the poetry of his works transcends the medium and puts him on the same level as other great poets.

He traces how each of these different cultural influences are represented in Dylan's works and how he has transformed them into something greater than their individual parts. This is a useful article because Mellers has performed exhaustive research on all the potential influences for Bob Dylan's writing. The article painstakingly explores how folk traditions, regional sound, and gospel music all have influenced Dylan. Mellers believes that the combination of all these various genres is what makes Bob Dylan's work so special and so unique.

However, the text is obviously heavily biased in favor of Dylan. For this reason, any personal opinions regarding the man and his work must be weeded through in order to perform an unbiased analysis. Still, even with this biased slant, the paper still provides enough historical and textual information that it is a worthwhile piece of analytical writing. Russell, Craig H. Notes. Music Library Association. 50:3. 1994. 929-933. Print. This article is a review of the book Positively Bob Dylan: a Thirty-Year Discography.

Actually, the article deals with the many different texts about Bob Dylan that had appeared on the landscape at that time. Russell points to several different texts and judges their effectiveness by the information that they provide. Of all, he seems to be most fond of Clinton Heylin's book Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades. Most of Heylin's book is based on personal accounts and interviews with the singer/songwriter. This favorable review of Heylin is counterpointed with a negative review of a book by Richard Williams.

This book, entitled Dylan: A Man Called Alias, he argues is not as truthful as the Heylin book. On accusation is levied that Williams "adopts some.