WORDSWORTH’S TREATMENT OF NATURE IN HIS POEM “THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND SHOWER”
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
E-Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Sastra dan Budaya Unud
Vol 15.1 April 2016: 17-24
WORDSWORTH’S TREATMENT OF NATURE IN HIS POEM “THREE YEARS SHE GREW IN SUN AND SHOWER”
By
I Gede Hari Sanjaya email: arickrocknroll@yahoo.com Program Studi Sastra Inggris Fakultas Sastra dan Budaya Universitas Udayana
ABSTRAK
"Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower" adalah sebuah puisi yang ditulis pada tahun 1798 oleh penyair Inggris William Wordsworth. Sebagai salah satu dari lima puisi dari serial “Lucy", yang menceritakan dan menggambarkan hubungan antara Lucy dan alam menggunakan kata-kata kompleks yang berlawanan dan sentimen. Wordsworth menggunakan antitesis dari kata-kata -'sun dan shower ', ' law dan impuls ', 'earth dan langit ', ' kindle atau restrain'- sebagai perangkat untuk membangkitkan kekuatan yang berlawanan yang berada di alam. Ada konflik lebih lanjut dan pertentangan antara alam dan manusia, di mana mereka berupaya untuk memiliki Lucy. Pernikahan dijelaskan antara Lucy dan alam, sementara kekasih manusianya tertinggal untuk berkabung dalam pengetahuan bahwa kematian telah memisahkan diri dari umat manusia, dan dia selamanya sekarang akan bersama dengan alam.
Dalam studi ini, karya penyair Inggris William Wordsworth yang berjudul Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower dipilih untuk dianalisis dan penulisan studi ini menggunakan sumber data primer dari syair tersebut di atas dan menggunakan teori sastra yang ditulis oleh Knickerbocker,, K.L. 1963. Interpreting Literature, dan buku Theory of Literature yang ditulis oleh Rene Welek and Austin Waren (1962).
Hasil dari penulisan ini menyatakan bahwa adanya hubungan dalam antara puisi William Wordsworth Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower dengan kehidupannya dan ini memiliki elemen-elemen dasar yang berhubungan erat dengan pengalaman hidupnya dan cintanya.
Kata kunci: matahari, alam, kematian,
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1. Background of the Study
Literature refers to something creative, imaginative, and expressive of which the material is language. It is created based on human consciousness and imagination which is translated by the artist into a concrete form. One of the important aspects of literature is its relationship with human life because it expresses and shares human life as well as human experiences
Poets work with words, while artists work with a variety of media including paint, ink, paper, canvas, clay, and metal. But both poets and artists offer pictures that reflect their responses to images, experiences, people, places, emotions observed, remembered, or imagined (Stamford, 2006 : 1235)
Knickerbocker and Reninger (1955: 309) state 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 determine the meaning of the whole poem, and in turn the whole poem helps determine the meaning of each part. According to Wellek and Warren in their book, Theory of Literature (1955: 309), the meaning of poem is seldom stated directly, but is carried or revealed by the element and structure of the work that usually in the form of figurative.
In this study, a poem entitled Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower by a popular English poet William Wordsworth is analysed. The poem is one of the best known Lucy poems written by William Wordsworth. The poet in this poem illustrates his belief that Nature is a great teacher. He believes that one can learn one can learn a great lesson if one approaches nature with a pure and humble heart. A deeper understanding about Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower is analysed by studying Wordsworth’s autobiography.
The problems to be discussed are formulated as follows,
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1. What message does Wordsworth want to convey in Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower?
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2. How does the poet’s autobiography help understand the poem?
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3. Aims of the Study
This study has three aims; they are the general, specific, and academic aims.
The general aim of this writing is to apply theories related to Wordsworth’s poem Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower and the specific aim is to find out what message the poet wants to deliver to the readers.
The last is an academic aim that is to apply the theory of literature learned in the English Department and write a scientific article to contribute to this department. Besides, this writing can be used a reference for the student who likes to write about literature.
There are three points in this section: data source, method and technique of collecting data, and method and technique of analysing data.
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4.1. Data Source
The data of this study were taken from Tomas Hardy’s poem entitled After a Journey. The primary data analysed in this writing were taken from William Wordsworth’s entitled Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower cited in (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174828) and the his short biography was taken from http://www.adnax.com/biogs/ww.htm.
The data are the object of the study. The method applied in this study is library research because this method is reliable and relevant to the process of collecting the data. The important one is to get some books in the library and some articles on internet as data sources and references in order to find out more data related to the topic of study.
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4.3 Method and Technique of Analysing Data
The data were analysed in accordance with Interpreting Literature by Knickerbocker, K.L. 1963 and Theory of Literature by Warren and Wellek. And one more theory to support this study is the Smith’s theory in his book of theory Inside Poetry. 1985.
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5. Analysis
Three years she grew in sun and shower
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 10
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.
"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.
"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend; 20
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mold the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
"The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face. 30
"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."
Thus Nature spake---The work was done---
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm, and quiet scene; 40
The memory of what has been, And never more will be.
"Three years she grew in sun and shower" is a poem composed in 1798 by the English poet William Wordsworth. As one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy series", the work describes the relationship between Lucy and nature using a complex opposition of words and sentiments. Wordsworth uses antithetical couplings of words —'sun and shower', 'law and impulse' 'earth and heaven', 'kindle or restrain'— as a device to evoke the opposing forces at work in nature. There is further conflict and opposition between nature and mankind, as both attempt to possess Lucy. The marriage described is between Lucy and nature, while her human lover is left to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated her from mankind, and she will forever now be with nature.
The beginning gives some foreshadowing that Nature also sees the beauty of this child and wants to raise her as its own. But the Mother Nature goes on to describe how the daughter will be led by both impulse and law and that she will experience many different things. Even in places as different as “rock and plain” or “earth and heaven” or “glade and bower” (Line 9-10) she “shall feel an overseeing power, to kindle or restrain.” (Line 11-12). It seems that he is encouraging the child to be wild and calm and live life to the fullest, see different things and experience all that she can. He goes on to say that she will be “sportive as the fawn” (Line 13) running around the grass playing and climbing mountains. On the other side of things that “she shall be the breathing balm, and hers the silence and the calm, of mute insensate things” (Line 16-18) which means that will have a balance of wild and fun and also being quiet and calm and peaceful. She will be everything and anything that she wants to be and all of the properties and beauty of nature will be hers. She will be free to explore and live and be whatever and whoever she wants to be. The Mother Nature says how the daughter, Lucy, will see grace in everything, she will float through her life
changing things as she goes. Things will bend to her because of her beauty and how charming and wonderful she is. He talks of how she will know all that there is to know and how there are so many things he wants to teach her and tell her of life. She is so happy about her little girl and living their happy life together. At the end of the poem, however, we find out that the “race is run” (Line 38) and that death has taken Lucy. She lives now in Nature and can stay with the Mother Nature in different aspects of the world around her and the memories of the daughter.
Wordsworth testified his true attitude of Nature. According to him, Nature is a heavenly spirit who has the combined qualities of a mother and a teacher. He observed and drew the picture of how Mother Nature raised Lucy up; moulded and shaped her life till she becomes a fine young beautiful lady. Right from the time she was three years old, Mother Nature proposed to begin Lucy’ s education in her own natural wisdom.
From the day she was born till the day she was three years old, Lucy grew under the light and the heat of the sun and the showers of the soft summer rain. Then Mother Nature said to her that there was no flower lovelier than Lucy that has ever been sown on earth, here Lucy is compared to a flower because of her beauty and the natural way in which she was bred in. Mother Nature decided to take full charge of Lucy’s life and would educate her according to nature’s own ideal. Nature would be to Lucy a source of inspiration for both law; rules of nature; and impulse; inspiring emotions, and with her Lucy would learn about the secrets of the mountains and plains, the wisdom of heaven and earth, in glade; a clear open space and bower; shady place under trees. She would learn to feel an overseeing power to rouse and control.
Lucy would be playful and merry like a young deer with that wild and tameless joy. Lucy would possess that gentle breeze that would act as a soothing and healing balm for her wounds. She would also learn to be silent and calm with the silent inanimate objects of nature. The silent floating clouds that pass by would lend their dignity and grandeur to her. For her the willow trees would bend; refers to the fact that Lucy would learn modesty from the bending branches of the 22
willow. Even in the strong movement of the storm; which symbolizes power and gracefulness; Lucy would learn to be powerful and graceful like the storm at the same time. Yet in silence, without Lucy being conscious of it, she would ultimately be moulded into a fine young lady.
In the process, Lucy would someday display all her true beauty like the stars in the sky on a cloudless midnight. She would be loved and close to them and would listen carefully in many secret places of nature. The secret places where the rivulets dance their wayward round with their streams of clear rushing waters. Their beauty was born with a soft murmuring sound that would beautify her and make her face beautiful. As long as Lucy dwells with Mother Nature in this joyful valley, she would shape Lucy’s thoughts to the height of maturity.
At last Mother Nature spoke and said that the work of educating Lucy was finally done. Lucy’s duration of life was compared to a race which has a beginning and an end. When she died all that she left to the narrator was the heath; barren land, the calm and quiet scene. The memory of what would always be perhaps suggestive to the fact that this work of nature would never be repeated in future.
This poem can be described as a Romantic nature poem because of the close connection was Nature. A key Romantic idea is the way in which nature is something that we can learn from and become united with if we are aware enough of our intimate connection with it. As a child, Lucy, the girl who dies in this poem, has a natural advantage, as Wordsworth believed that children were much more able to respond to the beauty and wisdom of nature and that this became harder as you grew older. Consider the following stanza as an example of the intimate link between Lucy and Nature:
She shall be sportive as the fawn (Line 13)
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things. (Line 18)
What is interesting about this poem is that, although Lucy dies, to Nature, this death is actually cast in a very positive light, as Lucy will gain a closeness with nature and become a part of it in such a strong way that it is almost a positive rather than a negative.
Nature takes on an interesting role in this poem. She is a beautiful and yet dictates the circumstances of Lucy's death. The poem is a beautiful elegy written to a woman who has died, and whom Wordsworth admired not only for her beauty, but also for her connection to nature, which Wordsworth felt was the highest possible achievement.
Bibliography
Knickerbocker,, K.L. 1963. Interpreting Literature. USA: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, Inc.
Morner, Kathleen. 1998. NTC’s Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group
Smith, Sybille. 1985. Inside Poetry. Pitman Publishing Ltd : London.
Stanford, Judith. A. 2003. Responding to Literature; Stories, Poems, Plays, and
Essays. Fourth Edition. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.
Waluyo, Herman J. 2003. Presiasi Puisi. Jakarta : PT. Gramedia Pustaka
Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren. 1963. Theory of Literature. London: Cox and Wyman Ltd.
Wordsworth, William. Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower (cited in http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174828) William Wordsworth’s Short Biography (taken from http://www.adnax.com/biogs/ww.htm.)
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