 Dylan 's lyrics began to receive detailed scrutiny from academics and poets . Literary critic Christopher Ricks published a 500 @-@ page analysis of Dylan 's work , placing him in the context of Eliot , Keats and Tennyson , claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close analysis . Former British poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion argued that his lyrics should be studied in schools . Since 1996 , academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature . 
