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A comment on The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan. Parent comment

Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by coldtea on Thursday October 13, 2016 @08:29AM (#12700257)
>There's no doubt he did this, but ... do songs count as literature?

They should. Literature and poetry started from rhapsodies, sagas, and other forms of song-based storytelling, and it's not very good that it diverted so much to some kind of literary ivory tower.

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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by kriro on Thursday October 13, 2016 @09:23AM (#12700558)
I'm curious. Should screenplays also be eligible for the nobel in literature?
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by stinkytaco on Thursday October 13, 2016 @09:29AM (#12700599)
Several dramatists have won the Nobel in Literature. Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Elfriede Jelinek, and probably some I'm not remembering.

EDIT: Eugene O'Neil, Jacinto Benavente, Dario Fo

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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by gkya on Thursday October 13, 2016 @12:45PM (#12702076)
Sadly Fo has passed away today.
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by dagw on Thursday October 13, 2016 @10:10AM (#12700856)
Playwrights have won several times. The problem with screenplays, as they exist today, is that they basically never really have 'an author' in the traditional sense.
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by georgespencer on Thursday October 13, 2016 @09:31AM (#12700611)
And should novels be eligible for songwriting awards?
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by Veen on Thursday October 13, 2016 @10:25AM (#12700958)
Most early poetry was sung, and we're fine with calling that literature. Calling Dylan's work poetry does step over some normative lines, but they're fairly arbitrary lines.

I know you were being sarcastic, but your comparison isn't really apt. Novels are not a lyric medium: they're prose. Song lyrics are lyrics set to music. Some poetry is "lyrics" without the music (although lyric poetry is not quite the same thing).

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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by irb on Thursday October 13, 2016 @10:11AM (#12700861)
I think the contention is that lyrics and novels are non-overlapping subsets of literature.
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by mikeash on Thursday October 13, 2016 @12:30PM (#12701947)
Songwriting clearly doesn't include novels. Literature includes both, and more.
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by CPLX on Thursday October 13, 2016 @09:35AM (#12700640)
If they have a tune and you can dance to them.
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Re:The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan by cooper12 on Thursday October 13, 2016 @12:39PM (#12702022)
Spoken word does exist. You're just drawing up arbitrary lines when in real life boundaries between media and genre aren't so distinct.
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