Ronald Duncan
Ronald Duncan was a British playwright, poet, and novelist born in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) in 1914. After the death of his father during the influenza epidemic of 1918, Duncan and his mother moved to England, where he later pursued his education and creative endeavors. He studied at Cambridge University, where he was influenced by prominent literary figures such as Ezra Pound and F. R. Leavis. Duncan's body of work includes plays, poetry, and a four-volume autobiography, though he faced criticism for the uneven quality of his productions.
He was part of a movement that aimed to revitalize British theater through verse plays, drawing inspiration from earlier poets like T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. Notable works include his successful play "The Way to the Tomb," which examines religious belief, and "The Death of Satan," set in a whimsical version of hell featuring famous literary figures. Despite periods of disillusionment with the theater, Duncan's writings remain significant, with some calling for renewed attention to his plays. His diverse literary contributions reflect a deep engagement with themes of faith and creativity.
Subject Terms
Ronald Duncan
British playwright, poet, and novelist.
- Born: August 6, 1914
- Birthplace: Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Africa (now Harare, Zimbabwe)
- Died: June 3, 1982
- Place of death: Barnstaple, Devon, England
Biography
Born in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) to Reginald and Ethel Dunkelsbühler, Ronald Duncan and his mother were sent by Duncan’s father to England when Duncan was less than a year old. The Dunkelbühlers had gone to Rhodesia immediately following their marriage in 1913, but when World War I erupted, Reginald Duncan was considered an enemy alien (even though he was a British citizen) because of his surname and was interned until 1918. Once released, he contracted influenza and died in the great epidemic of that year. Ronald, who adopted Duncan as his surname, never knew his father and was much affected by his mother’s unhappiness over his father’s internment and death.
Duncan attended school in Yorkshire and, later, in Switzerland. While working on his M.A. at Cambridge University’s Downing College, he studied with Ezra Pound and F. R. Leavis. Before entering Cambridge, he learned that he was beneficiary of an inheritance that would assure his never having to earn a living. In 1939, he bought a farm in Devon and two years later married Rose Marie Theresa Hansom.
Duncan is among a group of playwrights who sought to stimulate a rebirth of British theater by reviving the tradition of verse plays. Christopher Fry, Lawrence Durrell, and Norman Nicholson were the most prominent verse playwrights; they followed in the footsteps of T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender, and W. H. Auden, whose verse plays were often ponderous.
Duncan was a versatile writer, producing poetry, a novel, plays, and a four-volume autobiography. He has been criticized for attempting to do too much too quickly. The full corpus of his work, therefore, is uneven, although some of it, particularly two of his plays, Don Juan and The Death of Satan, are outstanding. His first dramatic success was his second play, The Way to the Tomb, which ran for two hundred one performances at London’s Mercury Theater. This play explores the nature and origins of religious belief, and it juxtaposes two contrasting events: the fasting of St. Antony on the island of Zante and the arrival of a group of television producers who visit the island to film a program about faith. Many of Duncan’s plays, which have substantial religious content, question matters of faith.
Such is certainly true of The Death of Satan, which is set in hell, but Duncan’s hell is a quite pleasant place in which such dead celebrities as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Lord Byron engage in witty repartee as they sit around talking and playing cards.
On occasion, Duncan became thoroughly disenchanted with the theater. Between 1954 and 1960, after a particularly productive period, he wrote only one play, The Catalyst, and it was banned by the Lord Chamberlain. The convention of writing verse plays never became as populat as Duncan and his associates hoped it would. Nevertheless, some of Duncan’s writing is well worth reading, and some of his plays deserve new productions.
Author Works
Fiction:
The Last Adam, 1952
The Perfect Mistress and Other Stories, 1961
A Kettle of Fish, 1971
The Tale of Tails, 1975
Mr and Mrs Mouse, 1977
The Uninvited Guest and Other Stories, 1981
Nonfiction:
Home-Made Home, 1947
Jan's Journal, 1949
The Blue Fox, 1952
Where I Live, 1954
All Men Are Islands, 1964
How to Make Enemies, 1968
Facets of Crime, 1975
Obsessed, 1977
The Encyclopedia of Ignorance, 1978 (with Miranda Weston-Smith)
Working with Britten: A Personal Memoir, 1981
The Encyclopedia of Delusions, 1981 (with Weston-Smith)
The Encyclopedia of Medical Ignorance, 1983 (with Weston-Smith)
Drama:
This Way to the Tomb, 1945
The Rape of Lucretia, pr. 1946 (with Benjamin Britten)
The Eagle Has Two Heads, pr. 1946 (adaptation of L’aigle à deux têtes by Jean Cocteau)
Stratton, pb. 1950
Our Lady's Tumbler, pr. 1950, pb. 1951
Don Juan, pb. 1954, pr. 1956
The Catalyst, pr. 1958, pb. 1964
A Man Named Judas, pr., pb. 1956
The Death of Satan, 1956
Abelard and Heloise: A Correspondence for the Stage, 1960
O-B-A-F-G-S-K-M-R-N: A Play in One Act for Stereophonic Sound, pb. 1964
The Trojan Women, 1967
The Gift, pr. 1968, pb. 1971
The Rehearsal, 1971
Lenin, 1981
Schubert: A Monologue in One Act, 1981
Poetry:
Postcards to Pulcinella: Poems, 1941
The Mongrel and Other Poems, 1950
The Solitudes (And Other Poems), 1960
Unpopular Poems, 1969
Man, 1970–74
For the Few, 1977
Selected Poems 1940–1971, 1978
Collected Poems, 1981
The Horse, 1990
Screenplays:
Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968 (with Jack Cardiff and Gillian Freeman)
Bibliography
Matthews, David. Britten. Haus Publishing, 2003. This biography of Britten discusses his friendship with Duncan and their collaboration on The Rape of Lucrecia.
Wilson, Colin. The Angry Years: The Rise and Fall of the Angry Young Men. Robson Books, 2007. This memoir by a playwright who was part of the Angry Young Men movement in British theater contains some discussion of Duncan and his plays.