Bob Dylan’s Tarantula

Bob Dylan’s Tarantula is examined as a densely allusive work that draws on literature, cinema, music, celebrity culture, and American history.

Critical readings connect references to figures such as Robert Frost, D. H. Lawrence, and Charles Darwin with questions of identity, memory, modernity, loss, and cultural inheritance. The book’s fragmented, reference-rich methods also provide a lens for understanding continuities with Dylan’s songs—including “High Water” and “When the Deal Goes Down”—as well as his painting and later creative work.