STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Bob Dylan has expressed awe at receiving the Nobel Prize in literature and thanked the Swedish Academy for including him among the “giants” of writing.

Dylan was absent from Saturday’s award ceremony and banquet in Stockholm. But in remarks read by the US ambassador, he alluded to the debate about whether the award should go to a songwriter.

Dylan said when Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet,” he probably was thinking about which actors to pick and where to find a skull.

In his words: “I’m sure the farthest thing from Shakespeare’s mind was: ‘Is this literature?’”

Dylan said he too focuses on “mundane matters” such as recording in the right key, not on whether his songs are literature.

He thanked the Academy for considering the question and “providing such a wonderful answer.”