Semantic and thematic analysis of dorothea rosa herliany’s selected poems translated by Harry Aveling

ABSTRACT

Poetry is one of interesting subjects in literature while, poetry is a kind of creation of people’s imagination which has some kinds of meanings, messages and figurative languages. Analyzing poetry is an activity which has concerned with many readers for many years. It is a given assumption that it is worthwhile, enjoyable and provocative mental exercise. To comprehend the poem is not the easy job because the possibility of making misinterpretation is great enough. The matter is caused by the different experience and points of view between the poet and readers. One method can be used to make easier in comprehending a poem is by paraphrasing the poem, that is altering a poem into phrases by adding the words or appropriate affixes, in order that the poem becomes phrases or sentences The researcher assumes that every word and every sentence in the poem have certain meanings. When we are talking about meaning we are also talking about semantics, which is one of the branches of linguistics is the study of meaning. In semantic, the meaning of word is called lexical meaning, besides, the meaning of sentence is called sentential meaning. On the other hand, we will be easier to understand the poem, if we find the theme of the poem itself because the theme is the basic idea developed by poet in a poem.

To find lexical and sentential meanings as well as themes are important ways to understand the poem. This study aims at investigating lexical and sentential meanings as well as the themes of the translated poems of Dorothea Rosa Herliany, an Indonesian contemporary poet in mid-1980s.

In analyzing these poems, the writer used a descriptive qualitative design because it did not need variable. Besides, the data were analyzed qualitatively without using both numbers and statistical formula.

After conducting the study, the results of this study are as follow:(!) Related to lexical meaning, most Herliany’s translated poems apply synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, connotations, and denotations, besides, related to sentential meaning, most sentences apply synthetic and analytic sentences, (2) The themes which are applied in the Herliany’s translated poems that is theme of divinity, theme of love and theme of humanity.

From those findings, it is very important to the future researchers conduct and develop this research by including all lexical relations, sentential relations and themes classification using different data.