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A structural analysis of william wordsworth’s poems

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

The material or subject matter of literature is something very general, such as

man’s fate, or human life. This implies that literature can deal with every human

activity, or human experience. Some of these activities are peculiar; some are

widespread, while some are universal. Therefore, people expect that literature which

is the record of human experience, to its subject, make a varying appeal to people of

other communities (Frederik, 1988:1). These theories support if there is a statement

that all of those experiences can be presented well through literary work. Literature

brings some values through people’s lives such as the increasing of their sense about

their surroundings and the increasing of their sensitivity. And it is helping them to

understand better other and themselves.

Literature is an interesting field in which the process of its composition needs

creative intelligence and imagination performed through language. Frederik (1988)

also says that literature is fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of

language. There is about not only writing, but also the way of how to perform the

expression through words as a vital record of what men have seen in life, what they
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have experienced of life and all about what they have thought and felt about every

single thing which have the most enduring interest of human being. In this case, the

writer of literary work from his own experiences—both observed and imagined

experiences—selects, combines and organizes to create new experiences for his

reader. With his creative thoughts, the readers or the audiences are brought to find

more expected experiences. This makes literary work is different with the other field;

it is all because even its creation process and interpretation need better understanding

and competence of the world of literature.

Like human being, each work of literature has its individual characteristics.

Poems as well as other forms of literature, besides fiction and drama have its own

ways of conveying the whole meaning. Daiches (1984) states that poetry is at once

the most simple and the most complex form of literary expression. It is simple

because represent directly and spontaneously. It is complex in its utility of the varied

resources of language which is more richly and fully than other works. It is also to be

called complex because combines the appeal to the ear with the appeal to the mind

equally. And it uses all kinds of overtone and suggestion to convey what might be

called the feel and quality of a situation at the same time it presents its overt meaning.

It means that the language used in poem is more condensed than the language used in

such as fiction and drama which mostly use our daily language.

Language used in poem is different from the language of our daily

communication that gives straight meaning of some information. The language of

poem consists of many layers of meaning. It has ambiguity, homonymy and

connotative words. Determining the sense of a word by its context is probably the
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most important skill in reading a poem and the first step in achieving that skill is to

take seriously about the meaning of the word that is still vague and confusing. The

reader should use a good dictionary as reference. It is a skill that one should have in

understanding a poem, on the contrary, in daily speech and reading ones are

constantly picking the correct one of the many senses that ordinary words possess.

For example during a conversation about pet, people automatically know when

someone says “dove” that he is referring to a kind of bird. But, when the reader is

reading more difficult material like poetry, he sometimes is unable to determine the

sense of meaning the word “dove” so immediately and correctly. It may be that the

reader does not know the specific sense in which the word is being used because it is

“poetic”. We can see that the language used in poem is more complex in meaning

than daily language. Even more, the meaning offered is not as clear as the meaning in

fiction or even drama which is played on stage so that is easier to be understood.

A poem is a composition that makes the readers think about words and their

arrangement (Pickering, 1982, 698). Words are the only material of a poem.

Sometimes we find a poem less than ten lines; the problem is that how words can, in

a view lines, cover the idea that represents the experiences and creates a new

experience to his reader. A poem is not only about words in line, but also creativities

in arranging and choosing the words so that there is not queer if a word may has so

many dimensions of meaning.

Actually, every literary work is a structure which is built by some elements.

These elements are interdependent to each other. In other words, the elements are

related to each other and make wholeness or unity. Poem expresses the idea in line by
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using diction, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, pattern, sound and sense, and tone as the

elements of poem. The elements in poem have a role in process of arrangement. It

means that the elements take a part in consideration of the poet in his writing process.

So that by following the role of the elements which interdependent to each other,

there is possible a poem, even in a view lines, can present the whole things intended

by the writer beautifully.

To be able to analyze a literary work, some one has to have some kind of

knowledge or sciences in literary analysis. There are many methods of analysis which

include structural analysis, biographical analysis, psychological analysis, and

sociological analysis. Each of the methods has its own characteristics. For example,

structural analysis focuses to analyze the elements of the literary work itself,

biographical analysis is focused on the creator of the works, while psychological

analysis attempts to analyze the psychology of the characters, and sociological

analysis focuses to analyze literary work based on the social background.

Based on some methods mentioned above, there are two approaches which can

be used to explore the experience of literature. The first is extrinsic study and the

second is extrinsic study. Extrinsic study attempts to interpret literature in the relation

with other factors outside of the text which influence the work; all histories, all

environment factors, which can be argued to shape the literary work. Some

approaches included in this study are biographical, psychological, sociological, moral

etc. While intrinsic study is the interpretation and analysis in the literary work itself.

A work of art is considered as a whole system of structure and served for

aesthetic purpose. Structure is the concept including both content and form. So far
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they are organized for aesthetic purpose. Intrinsic study sees that the work of art

stands by itself without being related to the factors outside or social reality of the

world. Therefore in analyzing the literary work researcher only focuses on the

elements of the work that form structure as a unity, in which it is called a structural

approach. The researcher can interpret a poem by analyzing every single of the

elements, and then combining and analyzing the relationship of one element to the

other. It because of each element has interdependence to the other elements and that

is the way of the elements of poem makes a unity.

In this research the writer uses structural approach to analyze poems of William

Wordsworth. According to Foerster and Falk in the American Poetry and Prose

(1982), William Wordsworth is one of great poets in romantic period. The period

where the felling-love-the heart were praised, the goodness of human nature and the

virtue of the man of feeling was proclaimed, the sentimentalism was changed into

something rich and strange, and the feeling became far more genuine, complicated,

and interesting.

William Wordsworth is one of popular poets of romantic period. He was born

on April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth on the River Derwent, in the heart of the Lake

District. Wordsworth and his beloved sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxden House,

which had the important virtue of being only a few miles from Coleridge's home at

Nether Stowey. This marks the beginning of the so-called "annus mirabilis," the year

of intense creative partnership that would result in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads

which was published in 1978. He wrote the second edition of his lyrical ballads in

1800. In the same time, Wordsworth was also working on what would become books
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I and II of ‘The Perlude’. A third edition of Lyrical Ballads, with an expanded

preface, came out in 1802. There were other poems like The Lucy Poem, Tintern

Abbey, London, etc. Wordsworth’s famous poem about daffodils was composed in

1804, two years after he saw the flowers on a stormy day with Dorothy. Wordsworth

published his poem, “I wandered lonely as a Cloud”, in 1807. He later altered it, and

his second version, published in 1815, is the one widely known today. And many

other poems of Wordsworth that become his great works. In this study, the researcher

is going to analyze five poems in the different year of writing, those are: She Dwelt

Among the Untrodden Ways (1799), I Traveled Among Unknown Men (1801), My

Heart Leaps up when I Behold (1802), The Sun has Long been Set (1804), I

Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (1815).

At the first reading or hearing, it may be to be simple. When the reader reads a

poem, for the first time, she will get certain kind of sense that comes through to her

immediately. This sense comes to the reader as a literal meaning or literal facts of a

poem, and it is called the plain sense.

The plain sense of “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways” tells about a

woman lives unknown of the eyes, no one praises her till her dead. Then in the first

reading of “I Traveled Among Unknown Men” the plain sense tells that the speaker

traveled in the land that he has never been there before. It just like his melancholy

dream that he really loves it, but actually the land is not to be the same again, there is

no green that Lucy can see anymore. The third is “My Heart Leaps up when I

Behold”, it tells about the admiration of the beauty of rainbow in the sky along the

author’s life, when the author began his life then grew up and till he died. Fourth,
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“The Sun has Long been Set” tells that there is a night with stars on the sky, little bird

among the bush and trees, there are also flowers named cuckoo and thrushes, in far

the wind sound as rush and the water that gushes, those all fill the hollow of the sky

and become the joy itself. The last is plain sense of “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

tells about a man who is feeling alone, and then in his loneliness he is admired by the

beauty of ten thousands of golden Daffodils, he sees the Daffodils are dancing beside

the lake, they seems the stars on the milky way, there is so much feeling of

amazement and it makes him to gaze and gaze, and finally his remembrance of

beautiful Daffodils fills his loneliness with pleasure.

The reader just got a plain sense of those five poems in the first reading. But

after reading more carefully and getting better acquaintance, she realizes that it is not

completely right. More over, with literary knowledge and sense, there will be many

questions appear in mind such as why this word is chosen by the poet, what is the

function of words repetition on the third stanza, why this word ordered as a figure of

speech and so on. Hence, the reader is motivated to find out that each of five poems

above is not only a series of words but it is meaningful one.

There is much more hidden meaning and many layers of poem have not been

discovered yet. Because of this reason which is supporting the researcher to choose

“She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”, “I Traveled Among Unknown Men”, “My

Heart Leaps up when I Behold”, “The Sun has Long been Set”, and “I Wandered

Lonely as a Cloud” as works of art, created by a great poet in romantic periods, to be

analyzed. The researcher is eager to know the words used by Wordsworth in his

poems so that can to present his feeling nicely, and to find out the deep meaning of
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the poems by observing the elements that work on it. She assumes that the whole

meaning of a poem is built up by the interrelatedness of its elements which are

diction, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, pattern, sound and sense, and tone. She also

assumes that without realizing how those elements fit with other parts, it means

analyzing of a poem destructive and meaningless.

In this study, dealing with the quotation above, the researcher wants to analyze

poems: “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”, “I Traveled Among Unknown

Men”, “My Heart Leaps up when I Behold”, “The Sun has Long been Set”, and “I

Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by using the structural approach in order to find the

elements (diction, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, pattern, sound and sense, and tone) is

unified and coherent.

B. The Statements of the Problem

The problems which will be formulated are as follows:

1. How do the elements of William Wordsworth’s poems are unified and then make

coherences?

2. How do the coherences of the elements in William Wordsworth’s poems build

general meaning?

C. The Objectives of the Study

The objectives of this study are:

1. To reveal how the elements of William Wordsworth’s poems are unified and

make coherence.
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2. To reveal how the coherence of the elements in William Wordsworth’s poems

build the general meaning.

D. The Benefits of the Study

The benefits of the study expected are: Theoretically, the result this study will

give illumination to the ways of understanding poems from the structural approach. It

helps the reader who is interested in how to interpret correctly the poem as one of

literary work by using the elements to get the whole meaning of the poem.

Practically, the result of the study can give the contribution to the teacher in the

way to handle the subject of literature, especially in teaching poetry through

structural analysis.