‘The times, they are a-changing!’

Ratna Raman

DARIO FO, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, is no more. Translated into several languages, Fo revived older dramatic traditions of the ‘giullari’ (Italian: medieval minstrel players) and ‘commedia dell’arte’ (Italian: 16th century masked theatre) for modern world theatre. Fo was an actor, playwright, painter, poet, theatre producer and political activist who unhesitatingly ‘scourged’ (whipped) corrupt authority and displayed great conviction and passion for the rights of the downtrodden.

 Fo was being laid to rest on October 13, 2016, when the Nobel Prize for Literature for Bob Dylan was announced. Dylan’s evocative lyrics on love, war, religion were lauded as “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Dylan has recorded music over several decades and his lyrics have drawn attention to many contemporary issues. It would certainly be in the order of things to award him the Nobel for music.  

Music and song are a part of literary traditions. However, writers and poets engage deeply with the social, political, cultural and philosophical undercurrents of their times, substantively using craft, presentation, context, genre and language to make their point.

Nobel Prize committees have often bowled ‘googlies’ (wrong ‘uns, cricketing terminology) on many occasions. This is not likely to be the last time either that small groups of selectors will make elite decisions that a majority might continue to find eccentric. Ngugi  wa Thiongo’s substantial body of writings have been clean-bowled in this Nobel innings.

Small committees are often authorised to take arbitrary decisions, but it is time to examine the restrictive choices that technology continues to throw our way.

It is a gross overstatement to equate Dylan’s lyrics with the poetry of a Homer or a Sappho who belonged to an older oral tradition and an organic community, very different from the simulated global community of our times. Pop songs in English are global icons that address an English-speaking minority the world over. They reiterate the hegemony (dominance) of English in a multilingual world.

Exalting one mode of expression in English as ‘Nobel-worthy’ gives short shrift (curt dismissal) to cultures engaged in fashioning new literatures in a multiplicity of languages. Adopting reductive practices eliminates complexities and textures in language altogether. Extant practices may make this possible at a speed that defies understanding. After all, ours is the century that has made letter-writing obsolete.

 Serious reading and writing are on a downslide. The threat of the generic short story being replaced by the witty quotation is real. As victims of WhatsApp, we know that observations on life, politics, love, equality, religion, race and gender can be made in less than two lines. Single-sentence quips along with illustrations, photos and emoticons are the ‘new literary expressions flowering within the great tradition of audio-visual exchange in the English-speaking world’.  

Given the rarefied atmosphere in which ‘litterateurs’ (French: persons interested in or knowledgeable about literature) breathe, Aunty Acid’s creator could contend for the next Nobel Prize for Literature. Writers, poets, painters, sculptors and artists will continue to be ignobly pitted against one another because Alfred Nobel’s Literature Prize morphs all creative forms of self-expression in the humanities into a single category.