THE ROCK POETS JIM MORRISON and BOB DYLAN

Contents Connection between literature and music The Beat Generation as an influence on rock lyrics Jim Morrison. The rebel, the poet, the rockstar The art of Bob Dylan Conclusions

When Poetry and Music Collide Literature, in its broadest sense, consists of any written production. Though contemporary definitions extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung. Literature refers to works of the creative imagination, including poetry, prose, drama, fiction, and in some instances, song. Before written literature there was oral literature, poetry that was made to be sung.

The Beat Generation as an influence on rock lyrics Rock lyrics are at the intersection of music and literature. Throughout the years the rock lyrics had turned into a hybrid literary genre and can be considered poems. Lyrics as poems set to music Lyrics that are a new version of previous literary works Recently, literature studies have increasingly paid attention to the parallels between music and literature. But little attention is paid to the influence that the Beat Generation had on rock music.

The term Beat Generation refers to a literary movement originating in the early 1950s and its key writers: Allen Ginsberg, Wiliam Burroughs Jack Kerouac The Beat Generation had a cultural and philosophical influence on rock artist. The same thematic concerns are found both in the Beat literature and in rock lyrics. There are a lot of similarities between their lyrics and the Beat Literature.

Characteristics of Beat poetry: free verse, open form, intertextuality, fragmentation, borrowings from other cultures and languages, and classical allusions. These characteristics we find also in the lyrics of Morrison and Dylan. Beat poetry has some thematic characteristics: breakdown of social norms, disillusionment, stream of consciousness, product of cities and urbanscapes, dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal context. Artists like Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison carried forth the anti-war ideal visible in Ginsberg’s poetry, and exposed a similar interest in spiritualism and Asian thought. Their songs evoke the same sense of anti-establishmentarism and non-conformism as the work of the Beat authors. Consequently, rock lyrics often appear to function as a carrier for their ideals. (Maarten:16)

Jim Morrison Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as one of his biggest influences. In his book "Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors", Manzarek also writes "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed." ( Manzarek, 68). Jim Morrison grew up reading the work of the Beat Generation writers Morrison’s influences : the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, the work of William Blake, The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

Morrison wrote poems for years before The Doors until his death, and many became texts for their songs. Many of the band’s songs began with Morrison’s poems; some of the poems were songs with music and texts originally conceived by Morrison. In a 1969 interview with Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, Morrison called poetry "eternal“: "Nothing else can survive a holocaust but poetry and songs.“ (Life.Death.Legend) Morrison’s poetry, in other words, gives rise to the notion that we can become the creators of our own reality through the power of the imagination, allowing us to create and, most importantly, recreate a world that is based upon our infinite desires, thoughts, expression, and imagination. ( Erkel:35)

Morrison wrote his works at a time of spiritual and intellectual awakening. According to Erkel the ambitions of the countercultural movement to reach a higher level of cognition, parallels Morirrson’s ambtition to become a poet; what the movement attempted to accomplish in its rebellion against Western conventions strikingly resembles what Morrison attempted to accomplish in his poetry and lyrics. ( Erkel: 5).

There is a wealth of literature on Jim Morrison’s life, biographys and studies on the myth of Jim Morrison, but not much research was done on his poetry. Wallace Fowlie, biographer of Rimbaud and Professor of French literature began teaching Jim’s poetry at Duke University. He recognized the influence of Rimbaud in the lyrics. Similar courses were offered at Yale, Stanford and other schools. Morrison began to be recognized as a poet by the academia.

Morrison’s lyrics are higly poetic. In “Light my fire” the verse “ our love becomes a funeral pyre” is a romantic association of love and death. In the song “Riders on the storm” we observe characteristics of the Beat poetry, such as unconventional rhyme and repetition Riders on the storm, riders on the storm Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan Riders on the storm

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan has won many awards throughout his career. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Dylan has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature every year since In 2008 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his impact on American music and culture and maked history as the first rock and roll artist to be honored. Bob Dylan was the first musician to enter college curricula when literary critics had recognized the intertextuality between poetry and his lyrics.

Bob Dylan is a songwriter who seems to sound more like a poet, he was the one who puted poetry back into songs. Bob Dylan once said “ I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.” In an interview with Dylan by Ginsberg, Dylan said that are only two poets that turn him on, Emily Dickinson and Rimbaud. Bob Dylan was one of the first rock singers to speak of Rimbaud in his songs. The lyrics of the first song of his album Blood on the Track are: Relationships have all been bad, Mine've been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud.

. Dylan’s work bears the deep influence of poets who came before him, particularly those of the postwar Beat Generation, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The lyrics of the song “Masters of War”, written in 1963 were about all those who benefit form the waging of war and profit off the lives of young men who die for a cynical cause. The lyrics are both political and spiritual: All the money you made Will never buy back your soul (Heylin: 118)

In 1965 the song “Like a Rolling Stone” became a revolutionary song and one of the most influential songs in post-war music. Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you ? People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall." You thought they were all kiddin' you You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal. How does it feel? How does it feel To be without a home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone ?

Conclusions Both Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan deserve be considered poets. There are a lot of similarities between their work and the Beat Literature Their poetry is full of meaning, romanticism, symbolism and the avant-gard forms of literary modernism. Both Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan were writing a new kind of songs that spoke the particular language and accent of its time and place, along the way meriting for themeself the moniker “poet”, winning acclaim as the voice of a generation.

Bibliography: Erkel, Steven Andrew, The Poet Behind The Doors, 2011 Heylin, Clinton, Revolution in the Air, 2009 Britannica.com/theBeatGeneration Fowlie, Wallace, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, The Rebel as Poet, 1993 Manzarek, Ray, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, 1999 Maarten, Luyten, The beat generation’s influence on rock and roll, 2012