have taken the reference in "Tangled Up in Blue" to the "Italian poet/From the thirteenth century" as a reference to Dante. Matthew Collins of Harvard, noting that Dylan may not have been precise with dates, argues that there are similarities between elements of the lyrics of "Tangled up in Blue" and the fifth canto of Dante's 14th Century Inferno, but finds it unlikely that Dylan will ever confirm who the reference in the song is to. Hampton, however, believes that the reference is more likely to Petrarch. Both Collins and Hampton note that in a 1978 interview, in reference to "Tangled Up in Blue", Dylan was asked who the poet was and replied "Plutarch. Is that his name?" Don Stanley in The Vancouver Sun said that the song "succeeds on the strength of its metaphors." An opposing view was expressed by Al Rudis, in The Pittsburgh Press, who was unimpressed by the song's lyrics, calling the track "a long lurching song [but with] no build-up of cumulative power" and stating that it contains "seemingly meaningless images." Neil McCormick remarked in 2003 that the song is "A truly extraordinary epic of the personal, an unreliable narrative carved out of shifting memories like a five-and-a-half-minute musical Proust." The Daily Telegraph has described the song as "The most dazzling lyric ever written, an abstract narrative of relationships told in an amorphous blend of first and third person, rolling past, present and future together, spilling out in tripping cadences and audacious internal rhymes, ripe with sharply turned images and observations and filled with a painfully desperate longing." Jim Beviglia ranks "Tangled Up in Blue" 14th in his 2013 assessment of the 100 best Dylan songs, saying that "this masterful song doesn't skimp on the pain." In a 2020 article for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis ranked it the twelfth-greatest of Dylan's songs. The track was ranked 3rd on Rolling Stone 2016 ranking of the 100 greatest Dylan songs, with the staff describing it as "where emotional truths meet the everlasting comfort of the American folk song." Rolling Stone ranked it No. 68 on their 2011 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and re-ranked it at No. 67 in 2021. A 2021 Guardian article included it on a list of "80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know". Live performances Dylan has performed the song live 1,685 times up to August 2018. The first