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James Fenton Quotes

At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This is the length of the ballad stanza, the verse of a hymn, and innumerable other kinds of verse Picture Quote #1

A glance at the history of European poetry is enough to inform us that rhyme itself is not indispensable. Latin poetry in the classical age had no use for it, and the kind of Latin poetry that does rhyme - as for instance the medieval ‘Carmina Burana’ - tends to be somewhat crude stuff in comparison with the classical verse that doesn’t Picture Quote #1

An aria in an opera - Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu,’ for example - gets along with an incredibly small number of words and ideas and a large amount of variation and repetition. That’s the beauty of it. It’s not taxing to the listener’s intelligence because if you haven’t heard it the first time round, it’ll come around again Picture Quote #1

Generally speaking, rhyme is the marker for the end of a line. The first rhyme-word is like a challenge thrown down, which the poem itself has to respond to Picture Quote #1

Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing Picture Quote #1

The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism, in places where ‘open form’ or free verse is the orthodoxy, you will find a memory of that raising of the voice in the term ‘heightened speech.’ Picture Quote #1

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When we study Shakespeare on the page, for academic purposes, we may require all kinds of help. Generally, we read him in modern spelling and with modern punctuation, and with notes. But any poetry that is performed - from song lyric to tragic speech - must make its point, as it were, without reference back Picture Quote #1

Some people think that English poetry begins with the Anglo-Saxons. I don’t, because I can’t accept that there is any continuity between the traditions of Anglo-Saxon poetry and those established in English poetry by the time of, say, Shakespeare. And anyway, Anglo-Saxon is a different language, which has to be learned Picture Quote #1

A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you’ve got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer Picture Quote #1

Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords Picture Quote #1

For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art Picture Quote #1

Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work Picture Quote #1

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In song the same rule applies as in dramatic verse: the meaning must yield itself, or yield itself sufficiently to arouse the attention and interest, in real time Picture Quote #1

I’ve not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot Picture Quote #1

The Italian word ‘stanza’ means ‘a room’, and a room is a good way to conceive of a stanza. A room, generally speaking, is sufficient for its own purposes, but it does not constitute a house. A stanza has the same sense of containment, without being complete or independent Picture Quote #1

My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don’t regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war Picture Quote #1

Love’ is so short of perfect rhymes that convention allows half-rhymes like ‘move.’ The alternative is a plague of doves, or a kind of poem in which the poet addresses his adored both as ‘love’ and as ‘guv’ - a perfectly decent solution once, but only once, in a while Picture Quote #1

The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank verse does not sound like a series of identically measured lines. It sounds like a series of subtle variations on the same theme Picture Quote #1

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The iambic line, with its characteristic forward movement from short to long, or light to heavy, or unstressed to stressed, is the quintessential measure of English verse Picture Quote #1

Metrics are not a device for restraining the mad, any more than ‘open form’ or free verse is a prairie where a man can do all kinds of manly things in a state of wholesome unrestrictedness Picture Quote #1

This is what rhyme does. In a couplet, the first rhyme is like a question to which the second rhyme is an answer. The first rhyme leaves something in the air, some unanswered business. In most quatrains, space is created between the rhyme that poses the question and the rhyme that gives the answer - it is like a pleasure deferred Picture Quote #1

When Mr Ackroyd says that in the 18th century, stranglers bit off the noses of their victims, I feel that he probably knows what he is talking about. I just wish he hadn’t told me Picture Quote #1

Metrics are not a device for restraining the mad, any more than ‘open form’ or free verse is a prairie where a man can do all kinds of manly things in a state of wholesome unrestrictedness Picture Quote #1

One does not become a guru by accident Picture Quote #1

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Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate Picture Quote #1

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops Picture Quote #1

Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world Picture Quote #1

Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do Picture Quote #1

What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page Picture Quote #1

Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty Picture Quote #1

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At four lines, with the quatrain, we reach the basic stanza form familiar from a whole range of English poetic practice. This is the length of the ballad stanza, the verse of a hymn, and innumerable other kinds of verse (James Fenton Quotes) A glance at the history of European poetry is enough to inform us that rhyme itself is not indispensable. Latin poetry in the classical age had no use for it, and the kind of Latin poetry that does rhyme - as for instance the medieval ‘Carmina Burana’ - tends to be somewhat crude stuff in comparison with the classical verse that doesn’t (James Fenton Quotes) An aria in an opera - Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu,’ for example - gets along with an incredibly small number of words and ideas and a large amount of variation and repetition. That’s the beauty of it. It’s not taxing to the listener’s intelligence because if you haven’t heard it the first time round, it’ll come around again (James Fenton Quotes) Generally speaking, rhyme is the marker for the end of a line. The first rhyme-word is like a challenge thrown down, which the poem itself has to respond to (James Fenton Quotes) Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing (James Fenton Quotes) The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism, in places where ‘open form’ or free verse is the orthodoxy, you will find a memory of that raising of the voice in the term ‘heightened speech.’ (James Fenton Quotes) When we study Shakespeare on the page, for academic purposes, we may require all kinds of help. Generally, we read him in modern spelling and with modern punctuation, and with notes. But any poetry that is performed - from song lyric to tragic speech - must make its point, as it were, without reference back (James Fenton Quotes) Some people think that English poetry begins with the Anglo-Saxons. I don’t, because I can’t accept that there is any continuity between the traditions of Anglo-Saxon poetry and those established in English poetry by the time of, say, Shakespeare. And anyway, Anglo-Saxon is a different language, which has to be learned (James Fenton Quotes) A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you’ve got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer (James Fenton Quotes) Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords (James Fenton Quotes) For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art (James Fenton Quotes) Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work (James Fenton Quotes) In song the same rule applies as in dramatic verse: the meaning must yield itself, or yield itself sufficiently to arouse the attention and interest, in real time. (James Fenton Quotes) I’ve not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot. (James Fenton Quotes) The Italian word ‘stanza’ means ‘a room’, and a room is a good way to conceive of a stanza. A room, generally speaking, is sufficient for its own purposes, but it does not constitute a house. A stanza has the same sense of containment, without being complete or independent. (James Fenton Quotes) My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don’t regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war. (James Fenton Quotes) Love’ is so short of perfect rhymes that convention allows half-rhymes like ‘move.’ The alternative is a plague of doves, or a kind of poem in which the poet addresses his adored both as ‘love’ and as ‘guv’ - a perfectly decent solution once, but only once, in a while. (James Fenton Quotes) The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank verse does not sound like a series of identically measured lines. It sounds like a series of subtle variations on the same theme. (James Fenton Quotes) The iambic line, with its characteristic forward movement from short to long, or light to heavy, or unstressed to stressed, is the quintessential measure of English verse. (James Fenton Quotes) Metrics are not a device for restraining the mad, any more than ‘open form’ or free verse is a prairie where a man can do all kinds of manly things in a state of wholesome unrestrictedness. (James Fenton Quotes) This is what rhyme does. In a couplet, the first rhyme is like a question to which the second rhyme is an answer. The first rhyme leaves something in the air, some unanswered business. In most quatrains, space is created between the rhyme that poses the question and the rhyme that gives the answer - it is like a pleasure deferred. (James Fenton Quotes) When Mr Ackroyd says that in the 18th century, stranglers bit off the noses of their victims, I feel that he probably knows what he is talking about. I just wish he hadn’t told me (James Fenton Quotes) Metrics are not a device for restraining the mad, any more than ‘open form’ or free verse is a prairie where a man can do all kinds of manly things in a state of wholesome unrestrictedness (James Fenton Quotes) One does not become a guru by accident (James Fenton Quotes) Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate (James Fenton Quotes) Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops (James Fenton Quotes) Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world (James Fenton Quotes) Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do (James Fenton Quotes) What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page (James Fenton Quotes) Writing for the page is only one form of writing for the eye. Wherever solemn inscriptions are put up in public places, there is a sense that the site and the occasion demand a form of writing which goes beyond plain informative prose. Each word is so valued that the letters forming it are seen as objects of solemn beauty (James Fenton Quotes)

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