English Poetry Quotes

• 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Love, Funny, Life

  In Memoriam canto 27 (1850) See Congreve 7

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• 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.

  James Fenton

  Language, Modern, Modern English

  2002 An Introduction to English Poetry.

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• Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?

  George Orwell

  Facts, Language, Said

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.324, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Book, Hero

  Preface (written 1918)

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• I never had much education in English poetry as such.

  Anne Carson

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• I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean, the clues were in the poems, but they didn't read them very carefully, and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

  Peter Porter

  Mean, Years, People

  Interview with John Kinsella, www.johnkinsella.org. 1998.

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• 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

  Regret, Believe, Reading

  "An Introduction to English Poetry". Book by James Fenton, 2002.

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• What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray! Our summer of English poetry, like the Greek and Latin before it, seems well advanced towards its fall, and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and creak in the blasts of age.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Latin, Fall

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.261, Xist Publishing

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• We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit.... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry; yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Humorous, Humanity, Genius

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.462, Modern Library

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