For many this was Dylan’s magnum opus and it certainly does contain some of his most astonishing work. For me, though it is widely considered a classic, it is probably a flawed masterpiece and has a patchy feel about it. The high points are stratospheric, the lows forgettable. Make of it what you will. If you want to go on and explore more of his work from this era, try Bringing It All Back Home and (especially) John Wesley Harding.
The Idle Woman 
All that is true! I can only add that this is a very addictive music, and listening to this album puts you in the serious risk that for the rest of the day you’ll have in your head only ‘Rainy Day Women’, ‘I Want You’ or ‘Just Like a Woman’.
My favourite album by Bob Dylan, containing one of my all-time favourite songs, “Visions of Johanna” – I like him best when he gets all weird and mysterious and surreal on us, but of course he’s one of the greatest songwriters ever in whatever his mode he happens to be in – and yes, that even includes some of his religious songs, even though that wasn’t his best period overall. For more Dylan at his best I’d suggest Blood on the Tracks and Love & Theft, but really, you can never have enough Dylan.
Hello Heloise! 😊 Well, if this album gets your thumbs up too, I must pay more attention to it. I am still learning to like Dylan (though I’m quite fond of Desolation Row) but I think my mistake is that I haven’t been focusing enough on the lyrics. Many thanks for the other recommendations – my uncle only got round to suggesting two albums so anything more is a real bonus!
I’m actually a latecomer to Dylan myself; I used to stick with cover versions of his songs and avoid the originals, mainly because I hated his voice. Weirdly, I came to appreciate his singing starting with his late cover version album Good as I Been to You where he sounds even worse than on his earlier work, all gravelly and barely human anymore, what I imagine it would sound like if rocks had a voice. And that opened the floodgates, so to speak, and today I own all of his albums. 😉