Who was Ronald Duncan?
Ronald Duncan (1914-1982)
Ronald Duncan, pictured right reading his epic poem Man, was a productive West Country author, journalist, playwright, poet, and scriptwriter. He may be best known as the librettist for Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and for his poem The Horse, which is read annually at the Horse of the Year show.
His career encompassed experiments with several writing forms including Man (The Complete Cantos, 1980), and a one act play in Stereophonic Sound O-B-A-F-G. Duncan left the legacy of a fascinating archive of literary and personal papers, the Ronald Duncan Collection, which was donated to the University of Exeter Special Collections in 2016.
Find out more about Ronald Duncan in our online exhibition