Bob Dylan's Nobel recognition is "vindication" for Gordon Ball, an English professor who nominated the singer-songwriter for the award 15 years in a row beginning in 1996. Ball, who specializes in American literature and the Beat Generation, retired from Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, two years ago and now teaches at Washington and Lee University.

"There's an enormous, almost a kind of unbelievability, that it finally happened," Ball said by telephone early Thursday. "People thought I was crazy or really out of line" to suggest that Dylan should be awarded such a prize. But he notes that the committee has recognized a "wide latitude in terms of medium," such as Winston Churchill's oratory, and there's a compelling argument that Dylan has had a good effect on the world.

With songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" on behalf of the civil rights movement, Dylan made a difference, Ball said.

"In short, he has changed the world for the better, I feel," he said.