# Quote — James Fenton, An Introduction to English Poetry

> Can the ear hear a thirteen-syllable line as consisting of thirteen syllables? I don't think so, but I think that a series of thirteen-syllable lines (supposing that was the length chosen) would, after a while, begin to have a characteristic resemblance. For the most part, though, counting the syllables seems to be something that works, if it works, for the poet. It is a private method of organization.

- Author: [James Fenton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton.md)
- Book: [An Introduction to English Poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton/an-introduction-to-english-poetry.md)
- Page: 99
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Fenton#An_Introduction_to_English_Poetry_(2002)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton/an-introduction-to-english-poetry/can-the-ear

## More from this book

> Tennyson follows his feelings in creating each line. He follows the music in his head. If you had asked him, at the end of the day, to describe the prosody of the poem to you, he would no doubt have had to think for a moment before he could answer you, not because he was ignorant of the terms, but because he had been writing a poem, not a metrical exercise. At every point, he was exerting his free will. And the outcome of that exertion was the form.

p. 24 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton/an-introduction-to-english-poetry/tennyson-follows-his.md)

> 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.

p. 125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton/an-introduction-to-english-poetry/my-sonnet-asserts.md)

> 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.

p. 115 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-fenton/an-introduction-to-english-poetry/the-composer-does.md)