Poetry, Sound, and Form: A Reply to Eliza Ives

Abstract The paper offers some critical comments on Eliza Ives’s essay ‘Sounding Sense and Sensing Sound: “Form-Content Unity” Revisited and Reformulated’. It is suggested that Ives’s intriguing formula ‘sounding sense and sensing sound’ is too narrow a focus for a satisfactory ‘reformulation’ of A. C. Bradley’s account of form-content unity in his lecture ‘Poetry for Poetry’s Sake’. A broader conception of poetic form is proposed, including, but going beyond, an emphasis on sound. Also discussed is Bradley’s notion of ‘poetic experience’, rightly endorsed by Ives but in need of further elaboration. Finally, some remarks, with added clarification, are offered in response to Ives’s criticisms of my own position on this topic.