Authors
Bob Dylan’s
Career
as a Blakean
Visionary
& Romantic
by Eugene Stelzig
Bob Dylan’s Career
as a Blakean Visionary and
Romantic
by Eugene Stelzig
Milne Library
Geneseo, NY
2013
2013 Eugene Stelzig
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License.
Published by Milne Library, State University of New York at Geneseo,
Geneseo, NY 14454
Cover image by Rowland Scherman accessed through the National Archives and Records
Administration at http://research.archives.gov/description/542021. This work is in the public domain
in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms
of 17 U.S.C. § 105
Cover and book design by Allison P. Brown
PREFACE
“Bob Dylan’s Career as a Blakean Visionary and Romantic” was completed
in 1976 as an invited contribution to a volume of academic and scholarly
essays on Dylan to be published by the Popular Press and edited by Patrick
Morrow. After the volume was accepted and the publication contract was
signed, the Popular Press reneged on the agreement, apparently because
it felt the volume would fall between the cracks: Dylan’s popular fan base
would not be interested in a book of academic articles, and academics
would not be interested in a pop culture idol. Obviously things have
changed considerably in the intervening decades!
Robert Shelton contacted me when he was writing his biographical study,
No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (1986), to request
a copy of my essay. He quotes from it several times in the book, but in
the Bibliography (mis)identifies it as an “unpublished dissertation, date
unknown.” Over the years I have had a number of requests for copies of
my article, mostly from graduate students writing dissertations on Dylan,
and more recently from a faculty member teaching a course on Blake and
Dylan.
My discussion—almost four decades ago—of the deep affinities between...