October 14, 1976 TimesTheyAreA- (CPS)~ “Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift,” whined Bob Dylan in 1965. But now Dylan himself-after fifteen years of myth-budding and paying liter aiy dues -is being put back into schools, as Dylan seminars spring up on campuses around the country. ft doesn’t take a fortune teller or gypsy from Desolation Row to know that the next generation will find Dylan’s words bound between Viking cloth covers, stacked 300 high in college bookstores, right next to Rimbaud and Whitman, fti the coming years, it will be the professors and critics who were raised on Dylan that will be determining what is of “literary merit,” not their crotchety teachers who rejected “the youth’s voice of the sixties.” “Anyone who thinks Dylan is a great poet has rocks in his head,” snorted a University of Vermont English professor in 1963, summing up academia’s attitude towards Dylan (himself a University of Minnesota drop-out). Not so long ago just a handful of maverick teachers were quoting Dylan’s words, mostly graduate instructors who led clandestine discus sions in seedy coffeehouses, seeking a respite from an outdated curriculum of a stuffy Ekiglish department Or the draft resisting music teacher who almost lost his job for goading seventh graders into a secret verse of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Today, Dylan is not only taught by legions of teachers throughout the country, but is thought by some to be the major poet of our era. In the last two years, courses dealing with Dylan have been offered at such diverse colleges as the University of Southern California, the State University of New York, John Hopkins University and Dart mouth College. At a recent meeting of the In the spirit of the free press, availability of space, the C.C. Reader will accept Please double spate all Letters to the Editor. letters and set your typewriter All letters should be signed margins at 20 and 80. by the writer. Publication will Submit all letters by Monday depend on this and the of each week. Capitol Campus Reader The Pennsylvania State University The Capitol Campus RTE 230 Middletown, Pa. 17057 Phone (717) 944-4970 W-13.9-131 EdHoHn-CliM w!!fL M in M v K,n * Cony Editor L. FMw Jr. Iffairtlilnn Wijfn# SlutUiMiilM staff Tim Adams, Ann Clartc, Greg Hall, Insz Kong, Virginia Lahman, John Lalorzapf, Diana Lswis, Ray Martin, John O'Naill, Karan Plckans, Robin Platts. Office Hours Fall Term 9:00 A.M. to5:00 P.M. Mon.-Fri. The Capitol Campus Reader is the schoo newspaper of Penn State’s Capitol Campus. It is Hiblished by the students who attend this school. Ws of the Reader Staff try to accurately represent the voice of the students, and keep them informed as to current events and relevant issues. We are published on a weekly basis. Modem Language Association in San Francisco, fifty scholars, almost all young English professors, gathered to discuss “The Deranged Seen The Poetiy of Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan,” and how Dylan’s view of women has evolved from “macho posturing” to a reconciliation of the sexes.” “I always use Dylan in my poetiy classes, it’s the most popular section of the course,” says Belle D. Levinson, professor of English at Suny at Geneseo. “Increasingly,” she adds, “students are more familiar with Dylan's songs, mostly because he’s being taught in high schools.” Levinson emphasizes the "crucial links" between the poetiy of Dylan and the French Symbolists, particularly Rim baud and Baudelaire. She lectures about the similarity of Dylan’s and Rimbaud’s psychic trips, how both “were drained by drugs and came out with changed senses of perception.” Their poetry is that of ‘evocation and experience rather than description.” Levinson often compares Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” to Rimbaud’s “The Drunken Boat?’ since both poems are surrealistic, drug induced, mystical journeys. At Geneseo, two of Levin son’s colleagues taught an interdisciplinary course on the music and poetiy of Dylan that drew scads of student raves. The chairman of the Modem Language conference, Patrick Morrow of Auburn University in Alabama, agrees that Dylan’s time has arrived in “higher learning” but stresses that it’s mostly the junior colleges and state schools that are leading the trend. “Popular culture has not been accepted by most major colleges yet,” he as serted. M orrow himself taught a pop culture course at USC which he found was extremely popular with students. Morrow, praising Dylan’s eclectic taste in literature, C.C. Reader Changin’ explains, “Dylan is powerful because he has the vision to seize the spirit of a movement, much like Yeats.” William McClain, professor of German at John Hopkins in Baltimore, was tickled when a few of his students uncovered direct parallels in the writings of Dylan and playwright Bertolt Brecht “ft’s wonderful to know that the words and moods of Brecht are available through Dylan on the juke boxes of America!” McClain said. And at Dartmouth College, where a seminar called “The Songs of Bob Dylan” was offered last fall, Bob Ringler, a biology major, remarked, “ft was one of the best courses I’ve had. I was somewhat skeptical at first not knowing much about Dylan, but I found that some of his songs recreated the themes of Browning, Blake and Rimbaud.” Dylan is only the latest in a long succession of renegade writers who were scorned by the literati of their day. Rimbaud was detested by the Parisian men of letters in the early 1870’s, and was running guns in Asia before cultists succeeded in legitimizing his poetry. Whitman's masterful Leaves of Grass was banned for its “Obscene and immoral passa ges.” And Ezra Pound’s poetiy was proclaimed “incoherent, the work of a madman.” This slow acceptance is probably no surprise to Dylan, who has an acute sense of history and always plays his cards right His songs are like a newsreel of the sixites and seventies, filled with the movements, fads, slang and personalities of the time, songs that were made to be examined thirty years after they were written. Dylan will most likely be a grandfather by the time they teach “Advanced Blonde on Blonde” at Oxford, but as he once said, ‘Tm still gonna be around when everybody gets their heads straight” Watch for the Reader Halloween Issue. | Your Complete \ | Family Drug Store \ 1 RUSSELL STOVER f | CANDIES | | HALLMARK CARDS | I CARDS I I Bankes j j Pharmacy | v 3 E. Water St. At Union Y v Middletown v The Hot Lkxiis published to inform the Capitol Campus community of all activities on, or concerned with, the Campus. Everyone should feel free to use this service by completing the entry cards available in the Student Affaire Office [WlO5]. 7:00 p.m.-Films-“What’s Up Tiger Lily?” starring Woody Allen and “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” starring Don Knotts-Capitol Campus Auditorium-Sposored by: Social Committee-Admission is free. HACC-8:00 p.m.-film-“The Letter”-Aud., Room 106. 8:00 p.m.-Penn State Football Highlights-Sposored by XGl’s-Aud. 2:00 p.m.-Soccer-Capitol Campus vs. Lincoln University-away. 2:00 p.m.-Cross Country-Capitol Campus vs. Baptist Bible College and Philadelphia College of Bible-away. GRE Test. 7:00 p.m.-Mass-Student Center Lounge Oct. 18 thru 22nd sign up for Road Rally at Round Table 2nd, 3rd and 4th periods. 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.-Martial Arts-Rec./Ath. Bldg. 4:00 p.m.-Cross Country-Capitol Campus vs. Schuylkill Campus-home. 7:30 p.m.- Soccer-Capitol Campus vs. Messiah College (J.V.)-home. Ring Day-Vendorville. 7:30 p.m.-SGA Meeting-Room 211. 9:15 p.m.-Bowling-Middletown Lanes 6:00 p.m.-Soccer-Capitol Campus vs. Valley Forge-home. Closing date for application for NTE. Sample election sponsored by Young Democrats-By the roundtable-To determine the support for the Presidential Candidates at Capitol Campus. 12:00-room 216-Hochendoner/Gekas debate-spon sored by DTK HACC-8:00 p.m.-Three films-“ The Gold Rush,” “Barber Shop,” “Another Fine Mess”-Aud. room 106 Raft trip (HACC alumni) sponsored by Outdoor Club. For more information call 236-6533 Ext. 378. 11:00 a.m.-Soccer-Capitol Campus vs. Ogontz Campus-home. 11:00 a.m.-Road Rally-M.H.8.0.G.-Main Building rear parking lot. 2:00 p.m.-Cross Country-Capitol Campus, Susque hanna University and Delaware Valley College-away. HACC-Raft trip (HACC alumni) sponsored by Outdoor Club. For more information call 236-9533 Ext. 378. 9:00 p.m.-1 a.m.-XGI Keggar-With Amberjack-Student Center-I.D. required. HOT LION Oct. 15 Oct. 16 Oct. 17 Oct. 18 Oct. 19 Oct. 20 Oct. 21 Oct. 22 Oct. 23 Page
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