FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S POEM “LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS”
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FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S POEM
“LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS”
BY
BUDI ANTARA
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
NON REGULER PROGRAM, FACULTY OF LETTER UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
2013
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul “Bahasa Kiasan Dalam Puisi William Shakespeare Yang Berjudul Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”.Penelitian puisi ini ditekankan pada bahasa kiasan yang dipakai oleh penulisnya.Data penelitian ini diambil dari internet dan penelitian ini dimulai dari membaca serta menelaah puisi yang dipilih dengan menekankan pada bahasa kiasan yang dipakai.Setelah itu mengklasifikasikan jenis bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan dalam puisi tersebut.Bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan dianalisis menggunakan teori Knickerbocker dan Reninger (1963), untuk menemukan jenis bahasa kiasan yang dipakai, apakah allusion, metafor, personifikasi, atau hiperbola. Dan yang terakhir, mencoba menafsirkan makna yang ingin disampaikan oleh penulisnya.
Kata kunci: puisi, William Shakespeare, figurative language
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963) in the book Interpreting Literature, the intrinsic elements of a poem are elements which emphasize the internal organization of literary work itself which includes the analysis of poem with its elements in order to determine the aesthetic value of the work. The intrinsic elements of a poem only present some aspects. They are the theme, imagery, figurative language, symbolism, rhythm, and rhyme.This paper focuses on figurative
language used in William Shakespeare’s poem “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”.
Figurative language is sometimes called metaphorical language or simply metaphor. The word”metaphor” was derived from “metephereien” which came from Greek. “Metephereien” means to carry a meaning beyond its literal meaning. The basic function is always to carry meaning from the literal to the figurative level (Knickerbocker and Reninger, 1963: 367). This study also tried to find out the author’s idea intended to be conveyed through the figurative language.
Based on the background stated above, the problem of the study is “What kinds of figurative language found in William Shakespeare’s poem Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds?”
Based on the background stated above, the aim of the study is “To identify the figurative language used in William Shakespeare’s poem Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds.”
Methodology is a set of method used in a particular area of activity. (Hornby, 1995).The methodology of this analysis will be described in terms of three aspects, which include the following:
The data source of this study is William Shakespeare’s poem “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”. The data were classified into written data. The poetic work of William Shakespeare “Let Me Not to The Marriage of True Minds” was chosen as the data source because of the brilliant imagination of the writer in using the figurative language which makes up a good poem.
The data of this study were collected by applying internet research. The data were collected through reading and note taking. The poetry as the data source was read through a close reading, that is, by reading repeatedly and intensively in order to find out the figurative language. After reading the poem, the following process was taking notes and finally listing or grouping the data source related to the points which were discussed.
In analyzing the data, the collected data were analyzed descriptively according to the theory of literature being adopted. The parts of poetry which describe the figurative language were noted down. They were analyzed, and then were commented in accordance with the related theory.
Before analyzing the poem, it will be presented as follows:
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
By reading the poem presented above, it was not all kinds of figurative language which were found in it. In each stanza of the poem, several figurative languages could be found. Based on the theory proposed by Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963), figurative language is divided into some types. Here are those types found within the poem.
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1. Allusion
Actually, there is only one line that can be categorized as allusion in the first stanza of the poem. Here is the allusion found within the poem.
First Stanza: “Admit impediments. Love is not love” (line 2)
Line 2 of the first stanza of the poem is considered containing an allusion. This can be proved by the word “impediments” in the stanza. The word “impediments” of the stanza alludes directly to the Church of England’s official marriage service: before a couple can be officially married, the priest asks the gathered congregation if there is any impediment to the marriage.
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2. Metaphor
Actually, there are several lines categorized as containing metaphor in the fourth stanza of the poem. Here is metaphor found within the poem.
Second Stanza: “O no! It is an ever-fixed mark” (line 5)
“That looks on tempests and is never shaken” (line 6)
Line 5 of the second stanza of the poem is considered containing a metaphor. In this line, the poet presents dramatic changes of the tone with "O no!" to signal this shift from negative to positive, and immediately launches into an affirmation of the quality of love. He seems like comparing something as he says, an "ever-fixed mark"
to “is never shaken”, it just means a marker that never moves even though by the tempests. This is all to suggest the over-powerful nature of true love.
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3. Personification
Actually, there are several lines categorized as personification in the second and third stanzas of the poem. Here is personification found within the poem.
First Stanza: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” (line 1)
“Admit impediments. Love is not love” (line 2)
“Which alters when it alteration finds” (line 3)
“Or bends with the remover to remove” (line 4)
All lines of the first stanza of the poem are considered containing personification. In this stanza, mindis personified through action such as “the marriage”. In addition, in this stanza, Shakespeare also personified love through action such as “alters when it alteration finds”, and “bends with the remover to remove”. The assigning of human characteristics of human consciousness is very clear in the use of these figures of speech.
Second Stanza: “It is the star to every wandering bark” (line 7)
“Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken” (line 8)
Line 8 of the second stanza of the poem is considered containing a personification. In this line, Shakespeare gives the star the ability to create its elements, as expressed in “his height be taken” and he makes the human soul that lives in his feeling to be linked with them. Here, the star is personified as “his” in which Shakespeare tried to liken the star to human, and ascribes the gender of the star as male. Moreover, the “height be taken” associated with the star is what provokes the speaker’s pondering about the position of the star in this universe.
Third Stanza: “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks” (line 9)
“Within his bending sickle’s compass come” (line 10)
In lines 9 and 10 of the third stanza, the poet personifies both Love and Time, claiming that Love is not at the mercy of Time. This is an allusion to the medieval conception of death as a character known as "King Death," an allegorical figure that represented the Black Plague, more familiar to us as the figure of the Grim Reaper, here brought to mind by the mention of the "bending sickle" (line 10). Finally, the phrase "sickle’s compass come" (line 10) makes use of alliteration to bring home the idea of passing time; the harsh repetition of sounds represented by letter “c” mimics the ticking of a clock in an onomatopoeic way.
Third Stanza: “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,” (line 11)
Line 11 of the fourth stanza of the poem is also considered containing a personification. The "his" in line 11 signifies that the "brief hours and weeks" are parts of Time, continuing the personification of this concept that we saw in line 9 and 10. This notion that Time has no control over Love is emphasized in this line, since the passing of Time has no effectwhat’s ever upon true love.
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4. Hyperbole
Actually, there are several lines categorized as hyperbole in the second and third stanza of the poem. Here is hyperbole found within the poem.
Second Stanza: “That looks on tempests and is never shaken;” (line 6)
Line 6 of the second stanza of the poem is considered containing a hyperbole by which we can feel the exaggeration of meaning such as the phrase “That looks on tempests and is never shaken;” The word that shows hyperbole in this line is “tempests’ In this line, Shakespeare describes how strong the tempest is or weathers storms are.
Second Stanza: “Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken” (line 8)
Line 8 of the second stanza of the poem is also considered containing a hyperbole by which we can also feel the exaggeration of meaning. The phrase that shows hyperbole in this line is “his height be taken” which refers to an astronomical topic. In the Elizabethan period, nobody knew what stars actually were,that is why the star’s worth is unknown, even though mariners did know the "height" of stars in the sky by their conventional practice in navigation.
Third Stanza: “But bears it out even to the edge of doom” (line 12)
In line 12 of the last stanza of the poem, hyperbole is also found. In this line, Shakespeare tries to exaggerate his idea about love which does not change over time. It endures the passing time, which is depicted as fleeting and “brief," and last until "the edge of doom," otherwise, known as Judgment Day, the end of the world.
It can be concluded that there are four figurative languages analyzed in this study, namely allusion, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole. The figurative language mostly used in that William Shakespeare’s poem was personification because this figurative language was mostly found in all stanzas of the poem. However, there are also other types of figurative language used in several stanzas of the poem such as allusion, metaphor and hyperbole.
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