"The Sound Must Seem an Echo to the Sense": On the Interactions between Sound and Sense

As poetry is characterized by its vocal performance, the interaction between sound and sense is an indispensable part of poetic aesthetics. The relation between sound and sense in a poem is like the relation between music and dance, harmonious matches enhancing each other. Through an analytical study of three poems, this paper intends to show that sound plays an indispensable narrative function in the poems, expanding the sense of the words. In the concise and delicate style of poetry, the different functional aspects of wording-its literal meaning, its order in a sentence, its pronunciation might be employed by the poet for certain sound effect or sense effect. The understanding of the interactions between sound and sense is somewhat personal, flexible and intuitive. This makes it possible that the interactions between sound and sense become an inexhaustible field for poetry interpretations.