James Fenton Quotes
53 quotes
in 920 categories
-
Those who actually set out to see the fall of a city or those who choose to go to a front line, are obviously asking…
-
What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page.
-
A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you've got to hear the wit of the words.…
-
Saigon was an addicted city, and we were the drug: the corruption of children, the mutilation of young men, the prostitution of women, the humiliation…
-
Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.
-
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…
-
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…
-
A really interesting and happy time was when I first went to Florence as a student and studied Italian. I was living in a pensione…
-
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…
-
Considering the wealth of poetic drama that has come down to us from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is surprising that so little of…
-
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…
-
The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.
-
English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as far as we decide to say that the…
-
At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.
-
Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate.
-
I don't see that a single line can constitute a stanza, although it can constitute a whole poem.
-
I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.
-
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…
-
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.
-
Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.
Browse James Fenton Quotes by Category