Allen Ginsberg Project Answers Questions on Bunting's Lectures

Don't know much about Basil Bunting? On the Allen Ginsberg Project blog, read a discussion between a student and Professor Ginsberg, or listen to an audio file of this conversation here (with thanks to Naropa). It's a great place to start!

AG: Some of the ideas that (Basil) Bunting was laying out, I would like to lay out here because they’re just very interesting. He was saying that, first of all, English poetry was sung up until the 17th century. All the poets wrote for singing including, of all people, John Donne! – Donne was sung. He was put to music by a fellow named Ferrabosco of that era (do you know anything about that?) – Well, apparently Donne was actually sung. Donne is usually taught nowadays as if he… you know.. he has one or two songs, like “Go And Catch A Falling Star”, but, generally, it doesn’t look like it can be sung, but he was actually, and there were composers who delighted in doing it, tho’ they were… there was a kind of singing of that time that was…

Student: Was that after the fact?

AG: No, at the time, contemporary.

Student: No, But I mean, was the poems first and the poets, or was the music..

AG: It was composed by a composer. He was friends with composers. It was close enough that it was actually of the same circle and it was thought of as words for a song. But it was a different kind of singing. Both Ralegh and Donne apparently had songs that were like somber readings, that were more like... that were approaching song, but it wasn’t really a song, but with music… Bunting pointed out that the idea of song of this kind was.. (song as song, like we have with Wyatt), was imported, and that the originator of the... the great cultural center for that was - Lorenzo de' Medici (what century is he? does anybody know?) Medici - Lorenzo de Medici, I guess fifteenth-century actually, probably. fourteen-something probably….[Editorial note - Lorenzo de' Medici was born in 1469 and died in 1492] - and that he himself, Lorenzo, sang songs which were, as Bunting describes them, “the “top ten” of their day”, that he himself sang, and was known to go around the streets, (I guess, (in) what was that? - Florence?), and sing, during festivals. And that the tradition of songs that was brought from Europe came to England . And, naturally, other courts picked up on it, (and) thought it was great, so, apparently, Henry VII and Henry VIII were accomplished musicians and cultivated music. Lorenzo de Medici cultivated all the great painters of his time as well as the musicians. So it was a great era. And (Ezra) Pound describes that, (some of it), himself, in the Cantos, picks up on the Medici brilliance, the brilliance of the Medici court(s), as an ideal social State.