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

我不说自己是个诗人，因为我不喜欢这个词。

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

我是一个空中飞人表演者，鲍勃•迪伦(Bob Dylan)在1965年说。

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

其他人同意他的说法——不是关于空中飞人表演，而是关于诗歌的那部分。

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.

鲍勃•迪伦的《狼蛛》(Tarantula)的正式问世，不是一个文学事件，因为迪伦不是一个文学界人物，《纽约时报》(New York Times)在他的第一本书、混合诗歌和散文的超现实主义著作在1971年出版的时候郑重评论道。

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

即使昨天迪伦被授予诺贝尔文学奖，这一观点依然存在。

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

评奖的瑞典文学院(Swedish Academy)称赞现年75岁的迪伦在美国歌曲的伟大传统中开创了新的诗性表达。

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.

但小说家欧文•韦尔什(Irvine Welsh)语出惊人，称这是从语无伦次的老嬉皮士发臭的前列腺扭下来的一个欠妥的怀旧奖项。

Dylan’s literary links are numerous.

迪伦与文学有无数的联系。

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

他的本名是罗伯特•齐默尔曼(Robert Zimmerman)，后来借用诗人迪伦•托马斯(Dylan Thomas)的名字为自己改了名。

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年出版的自传《编年史》（Chronicles，较早的一个中文版名为《像一块滚石》）中，他描述在1961年，19岁的自己在格林威治村(Greenwich Village)一间公寓里摆满了书的书架上像考古学家一样发掘，如饥似渴地阅读从巴尔扎克(Balzac)到修昔底德(Thucydides)的一切书籍。

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

他的歌词内容庞杂、充满典故和双关，穿插着诸多对作家和文本的引用。

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《如果你离开，你将让我孤单》(You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go)故作伤感的西部乡村风格歌名，跟19世纪法国象征主义诗人阿蒂尔•兰波(Arthur Rimbaud)的姓押韵——兰波对迪伦的作词有重要影响。

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《或许某一天》(Maybe Someday)中的一句歌词提到的敌意的城市和不友好的城镇(hostile cities and unfriendly towns)，与现代主义诗人T•S•艾略特(TS Eliot)的诗歌《麦琪之旅》(Journey of the Magi)中的一句（而城市充满敌意，城镇并不友好，And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly）类似。

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

迪伦有广泛吸收各种信息、然后稍加改动写进歌词里的习惯，这种习惯招致了有关抄袭的指责。

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.

鲍勃根本就不是原创，他在上世纪60年代的同时代人乔尼•米切尔(Joni Mitchell)在2010年控诉道，他是一个剽窃者，他的名字和声音都是假的。

Everything about Bob is a deception.

有关鲍勃的一切都是一场骗局。

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

根据《纽约时报》对《狼蛛》的书评，另一些人则认为，歌曲和诗歌是不同的。

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

歌曲中的小节是为了被歌唱出来，而不是为了让人们默读。

A key distinction is the use of rhyme.

一个关键的区别是押韵的使用。

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

在诗歌中，押韵在20世纪初的现代主义风潮中不再受到青睐，并且再也没有恢复过。

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.

但身为作词人，迪伦有一种对押韵的喜爱：白痴的风，像一个圆圈围着我的头颅吹着，/从大古力水坝到国会大厦("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，英国剧作者戴维•黑尔(David Hare)宣称浪漫主义诗人济慈毫无疑问比迪伦写得好，因而在高雅文化和流行文化之间引发了一场济慈(Keats)对迪伦的干戈。

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

但这种比较树立的壁垒是迪伦的歌曲拒绝承认的。

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.

对有抱负的年轻歌曲作者，我要说的是抛弃一切当下的作品，忘掉它们……读一读约翰•济慈(John Keats)，梅尔维尔(Melville)，听一听罗伯特•约翰逊(Robert Johnson)和伍迪•格思里(Woody Guthrie)，迪伦在1985年建议道。

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

文学不仅仅是一张纸上的文字，就如音乐也不仅仅是一张乐谱上的音符一样。

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.

今年的诺贝尔文学奖得主是诺奖历史上最让人难以捉摸的，最不容易确定的，但却并不逊于他的前辈。

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

就如迪伦在1964年用讽刺的鼻音所唱的：噫！我是个诗人，我知道这一点/希望我不会搞砸。