It's all in the italics, as it were: _literature_ vs. literature.
McEvoy writes:
"From the site referenced by Torgeir: "Not once have I [as Shakespeare never
either] ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" [Or
Shakespeare's "Hamlet" -- we having our mundane tasks to mind]. So, I do thank
the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question,
and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer." The emphasis, missing
from [Speranza's plain-text] version, may be important to the _sense_ [or
implicature -- Speranza] here. ... Dylan treds a very Dylan line. I think an
implication [or implicature? -- Speranza] of that line is that maybe the issue
of whether or not his songs are "literature" is, in many ways, not very
important - even though on this occasion he finds the positive answer given
wonderful."
Aha. Let's consider the issue (or question) propositionally:
McEvoy, slightly rephrasing the McEvoy's words in Dylan's first person: "Maybe
the issue [or question as to] whether ["or not" -- as McEvoy adds, perhaps
otiosely -- but cfr. critiques of Aristotle's tertium exclusum] my songs are
_literature_ is not important."
This reminds me again of Dodgson:
i. Important, unimportant, important -- The King of Hearts.
Another implication of that line maybe that Dylan read, or was referred to,
certain pieces written or spread after the award was announced. The NYT boldly
stressed that this gave a new 'conceptual analysis' to "literature," as it were
-- and those who opposed the committee were considered to be acting in an
uglily reactionary way. Consider:
ii. Is the Pope Catholic?
That's another "question". Is Dylan implicating that the committee actually
faced itself with the question:
iii. Are my songs _literature_?
Indeed, Dylan's implicature seems to be that he don't [sic] care [much, if you
must]. But questions usually arise in the context -- of something -- or
'presupposition', alla Collingwood, as Helm might prefer. And it seems that the
question WAS posed after Dylan's being nominated. A conceptual analyst alla
Grice would possibly take "_literature_" (for surely it's the CONCEPT of
literature which is at stake, figuratively) seriously. Do we have necessary and
sufficient conditions for the analysis of the concept? Does the committee need
to? It's not a committee of Griceians, after all. So I would suggest that while
Dylan is explicit (rather than implicatural) about he never once have had "the
time to ask" himself (ii) -- never mind answering it! -- it is less clear that
the committee did take the time. It seems that the if (ii) "Is the Pope
Catholic?" is used to mean "Next.," similarly, (iii) "Are Dylan's songs
literature?" -- and notably its affirmative answer -- was taken for GRANTED by
the committee. When the Queen knights someone, as she once knighted Strawson,
she has to justify that, "services to the philosophical profession," say. The
committee in Dylan's case was clear. He is awarded the prize of literature
"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song
tradition."
So it seems in that justification, both the question and its affirmative answer
("Are my songs _literature_?") is PRESUPPOSED, rather than implicated, implied,
entailed, or what have you. Or not of course!
McEvoy is right too that
iv. Dylan's reference to Pearl Buck is important.
She was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature -- and
allows Dylan a nice turn of phrase when he uses "men and women": "I don't know
if these men and women ever thought of the Nobel honour for themselves" -- or
'their selves,' as the vernacular goes.
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
