James Fenton
James Fenton
James Martin Fenton FRSL FRSAis an English poet, journalist and literary critic. He is a former Oxford Professor of Poetry...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 April 1949
language modern english-poetry
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 English language extends.
lines poetic relaxed
At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.
lines single-line whole
I don't see that a single line can constitute a stanza, although it can constitute a whole poem.
latin age use
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.
transmission carrie
Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.
writing faces problem
One problem we face comes from the lack of any agreed sense of how we should be working to train ourselves to write poetry.
enough accounts
Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do.
world tough tough-world
Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.
self musical doe
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.
epic narrative heroic
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.
two together weight
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.
running war fall
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 themselves to what extent they are cowards. But the tests they set themselves - there is a dead body, can you bear to look at it? - are nothing in comparison with the tests that are sprung on them. It is not the obvious tests that matter (do you go to pieces in a mortar attack?) but the unexpected ones (here is a man on the run, seeking your help - can you face him honestly?).
pages century happened
What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page.
alone artists modicum poem poet quite technology written
Working alone on a poem, a poet is of all artists the most free. The poem can be written with a modicum of technology, and can be published, in most cases, quite cheaply.