CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF NATURE
IN WORDSWORTH’S ELEGIAC STANZA
BY:
NI MADE SORAYA MERANGGI
1018351036
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
DENPASAR
2016
This paper is submitted as a partial
Fulfillment to obtain S1 degree
At the English Department
Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University
Approved by the Examining Board of
English Department,
Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University
Denpasar, January 2016
Chairman,
Prof. Dr. Ida Bagus Putra Yadnya, M.A.
NIP. 19521225 197903 1 004
Secretary,
I Gusti Ngurah Parthama, S.S.M.Hum.
NIP. 19770108 200501 1 001
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to the Almighty
God, for the endless blessing and precious grace, so that I could finish this writing
in time.
In this occasion, I also express my great thanks to as my first supervisor
and also as my second supervisor, for their patience in guiding me and giving me
valuable advices, supports, corrections and suggestions in completing this writing.
My sincere appreciation and gratitude are extended to Dr. Ni Luh Kt. Mas
Indrawati, Dip.TEFL,M.A as the Head of English Department. and as my
academic supervisor, all of the lecturers of English Department for their intentions
and assistance and given me valuable knowledge throughout my academic years of
study, and all staff members in Faculty of Letters for their kindly assistance
I dedicate this study to my beloved family, my father and my mother for
the biggest supports and motivations, without their support, this writing could not
be completed in time. I would also like to thank for all my classmates and all my
friends who cannot be mentioned one by one, for their cooperation, supports, and
motivation.
Last but not least, I realize that this writing is still far from being perfect, I
should apologize if there are many mistakes in it, and any suggestion is greatly
appreciated. Hopefully, this writing will be useful for everyone.
Denpasar, January 2016
Ni Made Soraya Meranggi
ABSTRACT
In this study, the poem entitled Elegiac Stanzas by William Wordsworth
was discussed. The poem was an elegy of the death of Wordsworth’s brother John
Wordsworth, he was lost on the sea, but instead of being a story about the tragedy
that overtook his brother or paying to tribute to him, it traced the humanizing
influence of the sad accident on Wordsworth’s mind. It explained his
disillusionment of his earlier beliefs about life and nature that were optimistic to
the extent of being deceptive and the cultivation of the awareness of the reality of
life.
Based on the study above, there are two problems which need to be
discussed as follows,
1. What message does Wordsworth say about life and nature in the poem?
2. Why does Wordsworth’s belief about life and nature change after the death of
his brother?
There are two main theories being adopted in this study. First is
Knickerbocker who states that as the first step in understanding a poem, it is very
helpful to make a paraphrase of its plain sense. The meaning of each part of the
poem helps to determine the meaning of the whole poem, and in turn the whole
poem helps to determine the meaning of each part. And the second is Wellek and
Warren’s theory about biographical approach in term of extrinsic analysis, to find
the relationship between the real life of the poets and the story they tell in their
poems. This study focused on the poem itself by looking at the message within the
poems. Extrinsically, this writing concerned with traumatic experience of William
Wordsworth and this experience has affected the poem.
Through Elegiac Stanzas Wordsworth breathes life into the sea imagery,
turning the water into a living creature in this poem. The sea expresses anger and
tranquility to create a great romantic image that has appeared similarly in other
pieces by Wordsworth as well. The subjects of sun, wind, and the sea appear and
all three-nature related images are found in Elegiac Stanzas. The subjects tend to
evoke similar ideas in each poem they appear in, demonstrating that Wordsworth
has definite personal feelings about those images and what they mean to him. The
sun is a source of happiness, the wind a source of fear, and the sea is a mystifying
creature that seems to have a life of its own.
Key words: sun, wind, sea
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. i
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problems of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 The Aims of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .4
1.3.1 General Aims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……. 4
1.3.2 Specific Aims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. 4
1.5 Research Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………..5
1.5.1 Data Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .5
1.5.2 Method and Technique of Collecting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
1.5.3 Method and Technique of analyzing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .5
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW, CONCEPTS, AND
THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Review of Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Thesis review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . ……… 7
2.2 Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … ……12
2.2.1 Concept of Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………12
2.2.1.1Diction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. …….12
2.2.1.2 Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………14
2.3 Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……....15
CHAPTER III
CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF NATURE
IN WORDSWORTH’S ELEGIAC STANZAS
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2 Life of William Wordsworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3.1 The Story of Elegiac Stanzas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……..34
3.3.2 Essay Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……..36
3.3.3 The Language of the Poem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4 The Analysis of the Poem as a Whole. . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . ……...37
3.4.1 Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………. 39
3.4.2 Traumatic Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………40
3.4.3 A Line by Line Explanation of the Identification of the Poetic
Device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………. 42
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
BIBLIOGRAPHY