Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
James Fenton
17 quotes
“Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in its origins, its transmission was oral.”
James Fenton (born 1949) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Introduction to English Poetry, Viking Penguin, London 2002
“Poetry is not a metrical exercise.”
James Fenton (born 1949) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Introduction to English Poetry, Viking Penguin, London 2002
“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 (born 1949) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: German Requiem, line 1 (1980).
“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 (born 1949) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford", line 41, from The Memory of War (1982).
“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 (born 1949) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: God, a Poem", line 5, from Children in Exile (1983)
“Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.”
James Fenton (born 1949) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Times, February 21, 1985.
“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 (born 1949) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Independent on Sunday June 24, 1990.
“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 (born 1949) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Independent on Sunday December 16, 1990.
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source