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
blank english good measured owes poetry series sound sounds subtle variations verse
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.
mixture
Sometimes I have thought that a song should look disappointing on the page - a little thin, perhaps, a little repetitive, or a little on the obvious side, or a mixture of all of these things.
applies arouse dramatic itself rule song time yield
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.
advanced behind embarked left poetry reached
In the writing of poetry we never know anything for sure. We will never know if we have 'trained' or 'practised' enough. We will never be able to say that we have reached grade eight, or that we have left the grades behind and are now embarked on an advanced training.
rooms palaces odes
A poem with grandly conceived and executed stanzas, such as one of Keats's odes, should be like an enfilade of rooms in a palace: one proceeds, with eager anticipation, from room to room.
transmission carrie
Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.
enough accounts
Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do.
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.
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.