Was Dylan too freewheelin’ in borrowing for Nobel lecture?
By ANDREW DALTON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The whiff of plagiarism is blowin’ in the wind for Bob Dylan.
Phrases sprinkled throughout the rock legend’s lecture for his Nobel Prize in literature are very similar to phrases from the summation of “Moby Dick” on Sparknotes, a sort of online “Cliff’s Notes” that’s familiar to modern students looking for shortcuts and teachers trying to catch them.
Slate writer Andrea Pitzer made the discovery, finding 20 cases where Dylan’s text had very similar phrases to Sparknotes’ text.
Dylan recorded the 26-minute lecture in Los Angeles and provided it to the Swedish Academy, which called it “extraordinary” and “eloquent” in a June 5 news release. The lecture is required for the winner to collect $922,000 in prize money.
Dylan and a spokesman for the Swedish Academy weren’t immediately available for comment.
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