I’ll take a stab at an answer: my understanding is that Dylan borrowed heavily from folktales, folklore, and the work of other balladiers. Checking myself, I s

I’ll take a stab at an answer: my understanding is that Dylan borrowed heavily from folktales, folklore, and the work of other balladiers. Checking myself, I see on his Wikipedia entry[0]: “ The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.” -Bob Dylan, 1985 Exposure to stories with a range of emotions is part of the point of English class. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan