I do, however, believe his early works--which he now denigrates---are quite valid.

Dylan was denigrating his early work in the middle 1960s when he was trying to escape from the expectations of the old folk guard. I've not seen any evidence of such denigration since the late 1960s. Quite the contrary, he devotes much of his current concerts to the early songs and that is the period that he's concentrated on in his recently published memoirs and in the interviews for the Scorsese documentary.