| dc.description | Bob Dylan is a recognized author whose sources of inspiration have already given rise to several studies, the most monumental surely being Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks (2003). According to Ricks, Dylan's sources can de found in the Bible and in the Anglo-American literary corpus, in writers ranging from Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot and including Milton and Yeats. Such cultural self-centeredness could seem surprising to a French reader to whom other names immediately spring to mind, such as Baudelaire (Dylan is a skillful inventor of oxymorons, a prominent element in Les Fleurs du Mal), Verlaine, and Lautreamont, especially in his early period. Moreover, Bob Dylan's inspiration is by no means restricted to the tradition referred to by Ricks, even if it is enlarged to take in the broad spectrum of Western literatures in their entirety. Robert Zimmerman, a Northerner, is indeed fascinated by the Old South. And this very fact quite naturally explains the important place assigned in his work--and one that he readily acknowledges--to the Afro-American heritage. It is our intention here to bring to light another source of inspiration, the cultural tradition of Amerindians. | eng |
![[PDF]](/xmlui/themes/Mirage2//images/mimes/pdf.png "PDF file"){kind=small}