Re: Bob Dylan & Darkness at Noon by Arthur Keostler

Date: 13 Apr 2003 21:35:19 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
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"James Zadok" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message news:<dXema.3001$email-address-deleted>...
> "Jim Linwood" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
> news:email-address-deleted...
> >
> > Koestler's title has biblical roots and it seems likely that what was
> Dylan was
> > also alluding to.
> >
> > "In that day," declares the Sovereign Lord, "I will make the
> > sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
> >
> > --Amos 8:9
> >
> > The novel was widely read in the 50s and also turned into a play. It is
> > unlikely that Dylan was unaware of the title even if he had not read the
> book.
>
> Yes, the novel was a famous one and I can't imagine that Dylan wouldn't have
> at least heard of it in the Greenwich Village of the early 1960s.
>
> However, there is one further Biblical root, later than Amos, but probably
> more widely known.
>
> Luke 23:44-46 (also Matthew 27 & Mark 15)
>
> It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in
> the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple
> was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your
> hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.
from Dylan lyrics over the years,most noticed on "Love & Theft",he's
influenced & he borrows-"patriotism is the last refuge to which a
scoundrel clings".Samuel Johnson wrote,didn't he,"Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel."In William Blake's day (1800+)another
engraver said B. was "damn good to steal from".Others rejoiced in the
tent of prosperity,Blake fiercely followed his fourfold vision to
obscurity,famous 150 yrs. later,a giant in poetry and art.His "To see
a world in a grain of sand........" sparked "Every Grain of Sand",D's
greatest Christian lyric,one of his best ever,in my opinion.T. S.
Eliot said .,"bad poets imitate ,great poets steal."Koestler 's "The
Act of Creation" he coulda seen.Clearly,he reads a lot,and what he
likes,he puts in his back pocket,William Shakespeare style.
Harry H