Restless Epitaphs: Revenance and Dramatic Tension in Bob Dylan’s Early Narratives

Abstract

Damian A. Carpenter’s chapter explores “two ways in which Dylan makes use of epitaph in his work and what this use symbolizes in regard to his identity as an artist: (1) as a performative, dramatic rhetorical space and (2) as an existential threat.” Carpenter engages Dylan’s debts to traditional poetics while also insisting upon (and stressing the importance of) his unique role as a writer of songs/music. Carpenter deploys an intriguing idea of “revenance,” defined in this context as “a portmanteau term that encompasses notions of the revenant (in terms of both a ghostly presence and simply meaning one who returns to a place), resonance and presence.” Central to his analysis is Dylan’s tendency to embrace a social/aesthetic past he simultaneously seeks to overcome.

old north Hibbing …

deserted

already dead

with it’s old stone courthouse

decayin in the wind

long abandoned

windows crashed out

the breath of it’s broken walls

being smothered in clingin moss

the old school

where my mother went to

rottin shiverin but still livin

standin cold an lonesome

arms cut off

with even the moon bypassin it’s jagged body

(Bob Dylan, “11 Outlined Epitaphs”)

I am quoting this excerpt specifically from the physical album’s liner notes because official lyric collections have since edited it.