ABSTRACT
In some kinds of text, the author's creative labor is centered on the manipulation of ideas, the construction of arguments, the representation of existing entities in a new light, or the imagination of hitherto non-existent entities. In other kinds of text, the ones we call literary, such labor is combined with, and is in a certain sense always subject to, the selection and arrangement of words. The long history of the term "form" poses problems for anyone who wants to use it today. In literary studies it can refer to an abstract structure or arrangement or the specific properties of a single work. Formal inventiveness is not merely a matter of finding new ways of constructing sentences or managing verbal rhythms. A necessary condition for a full response to the literary work therefore includes careful attention to, inter alia, the operation of reference, metaphor, intention, and ethics.
