Basil Bunting

Basil Bunting

Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud. He was an accomplished reader of his own work.

Read more about Basil Bunting:  Biography, Briggflatts, Portrait Bust of Basil Bunting

Famous quotes by basil bunting:

    I hate Science. It denies a man’s responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God’s fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. It is far easier for a Hitler or a Stalin to find a mock- scientific excuse for persecution than it was for Dominic to find a mock-Christian one.
    Basil Bunting (1900–1985)

    To appreciate present conditions
    collate them with those of antiquity.
    Basil Bunting (1900–1985)

    The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology.
    Basil Bunting (1900–1985)

    But their determination to banish fools foundered
    ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.
    Basil Bunting (1900–1985)

    Can a moment of madness make up for
    an age of consent?
    Basil Bunting (1900–1985)