Allen Ginsberg's January 1980 Basic Poetics class continues (in preparation for future notes on John Dowland)
AG; Apparently, I have.. the “Fine Knacks For Ladies"that you gave me the recording? – I have some (John) Dowland around and I had that so I’ll try and bring in a… I was going to try and get Charlie (Ross - sic) to bring in a phonograph today. Were there any others on that beside the "Fine Knacks For Ladies" ?
Student: There’s Dowland’s setting of "Weep No More Sad Fountains" on that other one.
AG: Ah, good ok.. We've got both of them then - "Dough-land" (that’s how (Basil) Bunting pronounces it)
Student: What's that?
AG: You pronounced it (that way) also.
Student: Yeah, I definitely lose points for saying "Dow-land"
AG: What?
Student: I definitely lose points for saying "Dow-land"
AG: Who knew better?
Student: "Dough-land" (from the Anglo-Saxon)
AG; "Dough-land" (Dowland) is the composer. Student: "Dough-land" (from the Anglo-Saxon)
In fact, I think what I'll do with the Bunting, I may.. I may bring in a tape and just play it, a few minutes of it, just some essential points, and also Bunting pronouncing (Sir Thomas) Wyatt and (Thomas) Campion (which is a real treat, because this is (with) this marvelous English, or Northumbrian accent with rolling "r"'s , and, you know, like, very finely pronounced consonants. It's really a pleasure to listen to). Nobody (here) knows Bunting? - I don't know. I've spoken of him here in previous classes, but.. He has Collected Poems, put out by Oxford University Press [Editorial note - now updated in the new Faber edition - see here]. He was one of the great.. with Marianne Moore,(Ezra) Pound, (William Carlos) Williams, (W.B.) Yeats, in the early part of the century. He was in obscurity for many years but.. the phrase that I've used here over and over - "Follow the tone-leading of the vowels" - was attributed to (Ezra) Pound (it comes from Pound's introduction to Bunting's Collected Poems (Dallas, Texas, 1950, a little paperback, the Square Dollar series of Pound. [Editorial note - Allen is factually inaccurate here - the 1950 edition of his Collected published by Dallam Flynn, an edition Allen owned and treasured, was actually published by The Cleaner's Press, Galveston, Texas] Then, later on, he was picked up by Tom Pickardand the younger British poets and then brought back to life by Jonathan Williams, and Oxford, last year, two years ago, [1978] published his Collected Poems. And he's really worth reading. And his specialty is condensation..
Student: What?
We might play some.. for the rest of the class we might play some of the.. a couple more of these.. a couple more of these ballads [Dowland's ballads] next time. So we'll hear the rest of them.
[Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately thirty-six-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately forty-one minutes in ]