AN ANALYSIS OF PERSONIFICATION FOUND IN WILLIAM BLAKE SELECTED POETRIES Cindi Claudia Steffany 1, Sesmiyanti 2, Dian Noviani Syafar 2 1 Mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat 2 Dosen Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat cindiclaudia77@gmail.com ABSTRAK Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui tipe majas personifikasi beserta arti majas personifikasi secara umum di dalam puisi-puisi pilihan karangan William Blake yang berjudul (Mad Song, Laughing Song, Night, The Echoing Green, Earth s Answer). Berdasarkan penggunaan majas personifikasi dalam puisi William Blake, maka peneliti mengetahui tipe personifikasi yang paling dominan. Majas personifikasi memiliki 2 tipe yakni prosopographia dan prosopopopeia. Data penelitian ini berupa dokumen dari puisi-puisi William Blake yang berjudul ( Mad Song, Laughing Song, Night, The Echoing Green, Earth s Answer). Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti menggunakan analisis dokumen sebagai metode dalam dan teknik analisis data. Dari hasil penelitian, peneliti menemukan 20 personifikasi. Kemudian peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa dari kedua tipe majas personifikasi yang ditemukan dalam puisi-puisi Blake terdapat 7 prosopographia dan 13 prosopopopeia. Dari data ini dapat terlihat bahwa tipe yang dominan digunakan adalah prosopopopeia. Blake menggunakan majas personifikasi untuk membuat puisinya lebih menarik dan imajinatif dengan menggunakan ungkapan serta menyampaikan makna tersirat yang terkandung dalam puisi tersebut yang memberikan nilainilai kehidupan. Katakunci: Personifikasi, Prosopographia, Prosopopopeia dan Puisi INTRODUCTION Poetry is the arrangement of the words those are become one unit of the beautician, poetry fulfill with meaning of the world, living things and feeling. Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. In general, poetries, like other literary texts, focus on interesting and motivating topics open to multiple interpretation (Akyl:1995). It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose. Talking about the poetry one of great poets like William Blake (28 November 1757 12 August 1827). William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker in the renascence era he is unrecognized during his lifetime but now he was known as seminal figure of the history of the poetry and visual arts of the romantic age. The common aspect to build up poetry is a figurative language but, it is also used in prose and nonfiction writing as 1
well. Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. When a poet uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are. Figurative language, in comparison, uses exaggerations or alterations to make a particular linguistic point. One kind of figurative languages is personification. Personification is a figurative language, technique where an object or idea is given human characteristics or qualities. In other words, the poets make an object or idea do something that usually is only done by people. With personification the poets make the object or idea resembles a person and, hence, they personify the poetry. Personification is not exactly people, but it sure think and act like us. Definition of Poetry Poetry is any kind of verbal or written language that is structured rhythmically and is meant to tell a story, or express any kind of emotion, idea, or state of being (Olila and Jantas: 2006), the words in poetry have power for it reader and it carefully selected for sound, accent and meaning to express imaginatively ideas and emotions. Meaning Meaning in general, describing that which is intended to be, or actually is expressed: the meaning of a statement. The meaning of a word, expression, or gesture is the thing or idea that it refers to or represents. Thus the meaning, of what someone says is what they intend to express. According to Hill (2002: 9) meaning are also often indicated by the verb to mean used or usable, in such expressions as square means. or your coming means. However, this clue to meaning situations must be employed with caution, for the verb to mean is often preceded by a reference to a person or persons, and followed by a reference to an object or an intended action without as has been noted, referring to anything. It s sometimes distinguished by use of such nouns as significance, signification, and import and by corresponding verbs. It means that every meaning is a meaning of something, is meant or eventually determined in some way or through some function, and within some setting. Personification According to Mezo (1999:11) personification is a comparison of something not human to a human being with this example my car decided not start this morning, this personification sounds funny how. There will be no time to a car start by itself if it not starts by human; here the reader know personification can be a joke. Type of personification 1) Prosopographia 2
Personification is where human characteristics or human qualities are given to something that is NOT human. Prosopographia is included one of part the type of personification, in which prosopographia is described about something abstract that can do the human activities and have the human characteristics or have feeling like a human. According to Erasmas (in Hamilton, 2002:1), prosopographia is the personification of something abstract. In this case, something abstract can be an unreal object or idea. For example, Inflation robbed me of my saving.this example is included prosopographia because the word Inflation is something abstract, but it is personified as is having the human action to rob. 2)Prosopopopeia Prosopopopeia is a figure of speech in which the human characteristic is given to something or not human as if they are human. For example, the star danced playfully in the sky. According to Izzo (2001:121), prosopopopeia is the trope of personification, whereby a face, a voice or subjectivity is attributed to an absent, dead, or inanimate entity. It means that prosopopopeia is the attribution life to something is not human like inanimate objects as if they can act or speak like the human. Then, Erasmas (in Hamilton, 2002: 1) states that prosopopopeia is a figure that either describes or represents people. It can be assumed that prosopopopeia can be object (inanimate). For examp le, the moon winked at me through the clouds above. In this example, the word moon is included object (inanimate) which is personified as if having the capability to wink through the clouds. RESEARCH METHOD This research was descriptive study. Descriptive determined and described something. According to Laurantina and Melchor (2007:70) in descriptive design, the study focuses at the present condition, descriptive design has many types. This research used qualitative research method because the sources of data were texts. Qualitative research does not give the numeral or statistics but it depends on how is the knowledge of the researcher in analyzing the data. The research method in this study will be focused on some aspects, such as; research design, source of data, technique of data collection and technique of data analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Research finding is important part of this research because it is the result of data analyzed activities. The finding must be suit with research questions. Research question was closed in general meaning and type of personification found in William 3
Blake s selected poetries. In 5 poetries researcher found 7 type of prosopographia and 13 type of prosopopopeia. Each of them can be seen on below as a reserch finding. There are: NO. Poetry prosopographia prosopopopeia 1 Mad 3 5 song 2 Laughing 2 3 song 3 Night _ 2 4 The _ 2 echoing green 5 Earth s answer 2 1 Each poetry in in this resarch has different style and type of personification. Mad song is poetry about the poet confusion in the young age bacause Blake is a poet genius since his young and mad song is one of his effort when he was about 14 years old in this poetry the poet tells about the brittle mind of the young age. The resercher found 3 prosopographia and 5 prosopopoeia type of personification in this poetry. Next, The poetry Laughing Song can be considered as a rhapsodic outburst of rural festivity. Nature seems to be in perfect tune. Looking at the lively green woods, the poet found total ecstasy and this makes him say, voice of joy and this poetry consists of 2 prosopographia and 3 prosopopoeia. pastoral Night is the poetry draws on imagery, looking at harmony between nature and human beings. The contrasts of day, followed by night, followed by eternal day, stress only the positive aspects of each. Poet wrote pretty much about angle and divinity in this poetry resercher found 2 prosopopopeia. The Echoing Green analysis would be incomplete if the resercher fail to understand the idea of the spring, as conveyed throughout the poetry. The radiance of the sun and the florid sky sets the smell of April. Only a poet of Blake s poetity can create such a wonderful background in simple verse, yet preserving the substantial theme of the poetry. This poetry consists of 2 prosopopopeia without no prosopographia found. And the last one is Earth s Answer It is the response to the previous poetry in The Songs of Experience. Introduction (Blake, 1794). In the Introduction, the bard asks the Earth to wake up and claim ownership. In this poetry, the feminine Earth responded this poetry of one prosopographia and 2 prosopopopeia. REFERENCES Akyl, Ayse.1995. Stylistic Analysis of Poetry : A Perspectve from an Initial Training Course in TEFL. Canada : Canada Journal. Hamilton, Cralg A. 2002. Mapping The Mind and The Body: On W. H Auden s Personifications. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. Hill, Thomas E. 2002. The Concept of Meaning. London: Humanities Press Inc 4
Izzo, Donatella. 2001. Portraying The Lady: Technologies of Gender in The Short Stories of Henry James. United States of America: University of Nebraska Press. Kothari, C. R., (2004). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Delhi: New Age International. Melchor.A.Calmorin & Laurentina.2007.Research Methods and Thesis Writing.Book store.inc. Ollila, Barnie & Joe Jantas.2006. The Defenition of Poetry. www.joejantas.wordpress.com:retri ved on : February 13,2017. 5