Quotes by : James Fenton

Some people think that English poetry begins with the Anglo-Saxons. I don't, because I can't accept that....

The voice is raised, and that is where poetry begins. And even today, in the prolonged aftermath of modernism,....

The iambic pentameter owes its pre-eminence in English poetry to its genius for variation. Good blank....

English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as....

The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday....

Modernism in other arts brought extreme difficulty. In poetry, the characteristic difficulty imported....

An aria in an opera - Handel's 'Ombra mai fu,' for example - gets along with an incredibly small number....

A glance at the history of European poetry is enough to inform us that rhyme itself is not indispensable.....

Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

Great poetry does not have to be technically intricate.