ABSTRACT
In turning to the idea of inspiration, it is important to emphasise the links and divergences between the aesthetic imperatives of Dylan’s art in the 1960s, his changing self-presentation, and his ambition, his making a name for himself. In the first place, his personality and temperament were wired, reactive, assimilative and sensitised to an extraordinary degree, and he was voraciously, even ruthlessly, intent on self-advancement as well as creative innovation. Van Ronk has described how fiercely competitive and driven was the early New York scene, yet Eric Anderson, a Greenwich Village contemporary, seemed to single out Dylan’s particular kind of drive as both a creative and personal trait, not wholly identifiable as mere ambition: ‘The earmark or hallmark of Bob Dylan is his curiosity, and that kind of restlessness would make anyone nervous. And he can’t stop. I mean, he is a driven maniac’ (Epstein, 155). Dylan’s inability to settle was clearly evident in small gestures (like the relentless, jack-hammer leg movement that everyone noted in the early days), and the whole kinetic gamut of intonation, grimace, movement, gesticulation, comedy, mouth-chewing, aggression, and shifting gazes that he brought to public settings in the mid-1960s.
