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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.

— James Fenton An Introduction to English Poetry (2002)

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More quotes by James Fenton

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.

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.

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.

An Introduction to English Poetry (2002)

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

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Fenton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.