Bob Dylan: A Fierce Poetic Soul of the 'People' in American Sixties

To experience the spirit of the American Sixties, long-haired hippies dancing at Woodstock festival, protestors marching in at anti-war rally, it is imperative to note how songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “The Times They Are a-Changin’” changed the face of generation. The significance of awarding 2016 Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan for literature does not lie so much in acknowledging of an individual poetic genius, as it does in reinstating the idea of ‘popular as political’. Bob Dylan’s songs act about the protest movements of the American 1960s also known as Turbulent Sixties. His hard-hitting lyrical trajectory transformed the legacy of country folk music into new socially engaged and politically provocative music. The paper tries to explore Dylan’s politically committed songs of 1960s which articulated a vision of society that was radically different from the existing political realities. It highlights the cultural resonance of Dylan’s radical lyricism amidst the countercultural era. Dylan in these folk songs appropriates and interrogates everyday struggles of the ‘subordinate,’ the ‘people’ or what Mathew Arnold called them as “populace”. In particular, the paper explores the relevance of Dylan’s hard-hitting folk songs during the Civil Rights’ Movement, anti-Vietnam War campaign and the Counterculture spirit of American Sixties.