In "Ballad of a Thin Man" in 1966, Dylan launched a withering attack on the myopic critic of culture: "Something is happening here/ And you don't know what it is, / Do you, Mister Jones?" Yet Dylan has been a subject of consuming interest to many of the most significant poets and critics writing in Britain and Ireland over the last 20 years. It has even been argued that he is the finest living user of the English language--true to his genius through...