James Fenton Quotes (17 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

James Fenton: 17 quotes2 likes

Famous James Fenton Quotes

“It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It is the spaces between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.”

James Fenton

German Requiem, line 1 (1980).

“The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.”

James Fenton

The Independent on Sunday June 24, 1990.

“A serious mistake in a nightie,
A grave disappointment all round
Is all that you'll get from th'Almighty,
Is all that you'll get underground.
Oh he said: "If you lay off the crumpet
I'll see you alright in the end.
Just hang on until the last trumpet.
Have faith in me, chum – I'm your friend."”

James Fenton

"God, a Poem", line 5, from Children in Exile (1983)

“There is always a nasty surprise in store for the imperial mind. It is typical of the imperial point of view that it is ignorant of, or blind to, the other. The imperial mind keeps missing the point. It fails to appreciate, for all its benevolence, why it might come under attack, why it might, for instance, be worth a nation's while to rise up against it. The imperial mind has to be shocked out of its daydreams.”

James Fenton

"Goodbye to All That?" (p. 72)
The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (2001)

“My sonnet asserts that the sonnet still lives. My epic, should such fortune befall me, asserts that the heroic narrative is not lost — that it is born again.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 22: Poetic Drama and Opera (p. 125)

“The composer does not want the self-sufficiency of a richly complex text: he or she wants to feel that the text is something in need of musical setting.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 21: Song (p. 115)

James Fenton Quotes

“It normally happens that if you put two words together, or two syllables together, one of them will attract more weight, more emphasis, than the other. In other words, most so-called spondees can be read as either iambs or trochees.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 5: The Iambic Pentameter (p. 28)

“Yes
You have come upon the fabled lands where myths
Go when they die,
But some, especially the Brummagem capitalist
Juju, have arrived prematurely.”

James Fenton

"The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford", line 41, from The Memory of War (1982).

“As poets we do not ask permission before we begin to practise, for there is no authority to license us. We do not inquire whether it is still possible to pen a drama, for the answer to that question is ours alone to give. It is our drama, spoken or sung, that asserts our right to the title of poet. It is our decision that counts, and not the opinion of some theatre management, or the ponderings of the critic, or even the advice of our friendliest mentors.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 22: Poetic Drama and Opera (p. 125)

“Can the ear hear a thirteen-syllable line as consisting of thirteen syllables? I don't think so, but I think that a series of thirteen-syllable lines (supposing that was the length chosen) would, after a while, begin to have a characteristic resemblance. For the most part, though, counting the syllables seems to be something that works, if it works, for the poet. It is a private method of organization.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 18: Syllabics (p. 99)

“Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most…are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 3: The Training of the Poet (p. 21)

“We are never such kleptomaniacs as in our juvenilia. We steal from our masters. We steal from our friends, from our enemies even. We try out tones of voice for which we are ill suited. We write as if we belong to some other period. We are suckers for gorgeous words such as nenuphar, asphodel, and pelf. And because we are not yet in command of our vehicle we get out of control. We reveal ourselves inadvertently and we inadvertently commit ourselves to some point of view that really isn't "us" at all.”

James Fenton

"Wilfred Owen's Juvenilia" (p. 26)
The Strength of Poetry: Oxford Lectures (2001)

“Poetry is not a metrical exercise.”

James Fenton

An Introduction to English Poetry, Viking Penguin, London 2002 ISBN 0141004398

“Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.”

James Fenton

The Times, February 21, 1985.

“Tennyson follows his feelings in creating each line. He follows the music in his head. If you had asked him, at the end of the day, to describe the prosody of the poem to you, he would no doubt have had to think for a moment before he could answer you, not because he was ignorant of the terms, but because he had been writing a poem, not a metrical exercise. At every point, he was exerting his free will. And the outcome of that exertion was the form.”

James Fenton

Source: An Introduction to English Poetry (2002), Ch. 4: The Sense of Form (pp. 24-25)

“Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.”

James Fenton

The Independent on Sunday December 16, 1990.

“Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in its origins, its transmission was oral.”

James Fenton

An Introduction to English Poetry, Viking Penguin, London 2002 ISBN 0141004398

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