ABSTRACT
This chapter describes various threads of conversation pertaining to Bob Dylan's outlaw persona and the outlaws in his work. In order to provide a fuller consideration of this foundational aspect of Dylan's art by considering how outlaw emerged from the folk tradition of the outlaw and the old, weird America. The chapter demonstrates continuity between the outlaw/trickster role of Dylan's persona and the outlaws he presents. It explains how it recognizes that an outlaw thread runs beyond songs specifically about outlaws to social and cultural outsiders. The chapter explores how feeling, rather than fact, and honesty form the ethical core of Dylan's outlaw milieu. The tension between the individual outlaw and his role in cultural performance and history is always present in Dylan's performance persona and is integral to understanding the outlaw figures that appear in his work. By 1981, Dylan shifts his examination of the outlaw figure specifically to a cultural figure/performer in "Lenny Bruce".
