"Unexpected Affinities: A Surprising and Refreshing Read"

Ever since Alexander Popes famous dictum that "The sound must seem an echo to the sense" (45), that ghostly "echo" between sound and sense has haunted poets and critics for centuries. What is the essence of this resonance and what are its modern variations? How do assonance, consonance, and repetitions, or what is commonly called "poetic music," participate in the complex signifying process of modern poetry? Does this special music facilitate, impede, or simply intoxicate the literal sense of a modern poem?

In a lecture titled "Poetry and Abstract Thought" (1939), the French Symbolist Paul Valéry (1871-1945) likens the poetic process to a "living pendulum" that hypnotically swings back and forth between sound and sense "as though the very sense which is present to your mind can find no other outlet or expression, no other answer, than the very music which gave it birth" (72).

Journal of Modern Literature Book Review: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/771286