22+ James Fenton Quotes On Education, Culture And Titanic

James Fenton is a British poet, playwright, journalist, and literary critic. He was born in Lincoln in 1949 and studied at Oxford University. He is known for his works such as Children in Exile, Out of Danger, and The Memory of War. Following is our collection on famous quotes by James Fenton on education, life, culture.

Top 10 James Fenton Quotes

1. The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
2. 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 be done.
3. The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.
4. One does not become a guru by accident.
5. Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Oh let us not be condemned for what we are. It is enough to account for what we do.
9. 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.
10. What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page.

James Fenton Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

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. — James Fenton

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 of the old, the division of the family, the division of the country-it had all been done in our name. . . . The French city . . . had represented the opium stage of the addiction. With the Americans had begun the heroin phase. — James Fenton

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?). — James Fenton

Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most... are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so. — James Fenton

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops. — James Fenton

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 any value has been added since. — James Fenton

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 on an allowance of £40 a month, which was princely. I did a lot of work and enjoyed myself immensely. — James Fenton

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

It has to be displayed, this face, on a more or less horizontal plane. Imagine a man wearing a mask, and imagine that the elastic which holds the mask on has just broken, so that the man (rather than let the mask slip off) has to tilt his head back and balance the mask on his real face. This is the kind of tyranny which Lawson's face exerts over the rest of his body as he cruises along the corridors. He doesn't look down his nose at you, he looks along his nose. — James Fenton

Life Lessons by James Fenton

1. James Fenton's work emphasizes the importance of self-expression and being true to oneself. He encourages readers to take risks and to explore their own creativity.
2. Fenton's poetry also highlights the beauty and power of nature, as well as the need to appreciate and protect it.
3. His work emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting those who are different from us, and the need to strive for peace and justice in the world.