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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study This study is a New Criticism inquiry into three poems written by Lang Leav in her poetry volume entitled Memories published in 2015. This study focuses on the formal literary elements within those three poems. In relevance to the current study, contemporary poetry has a significant point in defining and making meaning of heartbreak. Because nowadays, the millennials are praising and agreeing with matters on heartbreak leading to new ways of appreciating the phenomena such as using social media platforms to share the similar meaning and understanding of the feeling and how they perceived it. This becomes the reason of creating of new trends in literature, for example, Instapoetry. This then is what differentiates the aspects of understanding heartbreak from the past and the modern era. Now, heartbreak in contemporary poetry is seen as somewhat more direct and straightforward in delivering the message to the reader, and the readers also feel a bond with the literary works itself. The first literary work chosen by the writer is "After the Storm", a prose- poetry which consists of four stanzas. The first work tells about the story of loss and heartbreak that is felt by the speaker that uses storms and its aftermath as a symbolism of hope after a series of destruction. The second literary work is entitled "A Love Story", a poem consisted of four stanzas. The poem tells the story of the search of memories through the past, the speaker in the poem here reminisces a particular past where she was once happily
2 in love. The poem has a melancholic undertone and atmosphere, which are a dominant literary characteristic in Leav's book. The third work is entitled "Dead Poets", a prose-poetry which consist of seventeen short stanzas. The prose-poetry speaks of a girl who aspires to be a poet, unaware of the consequences that waited for her if she still chooses to be a poet, which is her heart that will never heal from the love that will never return. Several previous studies have been conducted on the matters of contemporary poetry especially Lang Leav's works as written by Anisah Azmita's study entitled Faithful Translation in Two of Lang Leav Poems Translated by Aan Mansyur (2019) tells the importance of translation theories in creating a right translated product, in this case, using poems by Lang Leav. The result of her study is that the translation product that uses faithful translation is better than the translation product that uses semantics and a word-for-word method. The second study is entitled Semantic Deviation in Lang Leav's Love and Misadventure: A Stylistic Study written by Prima Lestari (2018). The study examines the usage of semantics deviation in Leav's poem expressions. The result of her study is that out of twelve types of semantic deviation, there are only ten found in Leav's Love and Misadventures , with metaphor as a prominent semantic deviation used by Leav because metaphor gives different reading experience to the readers. This study has successfully shown how Instapoetry is structured and the various selection of semantic deviations used in creating the works. The third study conducted by Rina Gunawan (2017) entitled An Analysis of Figurative Language in Five Selected Lang Leav's Poem explores the many uses of
4 writing literature. However, Instapoetry can still be seen as an example of how diverse contemporary literature is nowadays. Leav is one of the prominent pioneer figures in popularizing the style of Instapoetry, along with several others such as Rupi Kaur, Nikita Gill, R.M. Drake, R.H Sin., and Atticus Poetry (Berens 2019). This trend in publishing poetry through social media and the rise of Instapoetry defines the importance and the need for further research into the field of contemporary literature (Berens 2018). Recently, the trend of poetry in contemporary literature has seen a significant rise in attention. Leav's compilation of prose-poetry which was first published in her personal Instagram page is now turned into a book with the title Memories. In this book, Leav compiles her previous works from her previous books entitled Lullabies and Love and Misadventures , along with a new edition of her poems. The book itself captures special attention on the issue of heartbreak, sadness, and the journey of healing oneself from the pain of heartbreak, and ultimately through reading Memories , the feeling of self-exploration and rejuvenation can be attained, which is why this particular work is worth reviewing. The book itself is divided into two main chapters: part one Here and Now and part two Remember When. The current literature on contemporary poetry has been wholly focusing on the issue of narrative in poetry for quite some time. One article was written by Brian McHale (2009) entitled Beginning to Think about Narrative in Poetry implore readers to focus on the importance of narrative aspects in poetry. McHale's intention to shed light on the narrative study is commendable; however, he lacks to incorporate formal elements and its role in analyzing poetry. The second work is a
5 book written by Mieke Bal (2017) entitled Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative is one of Bal's more critical works on the study of narrative. Similar to McHale's article, Bal has shown more tendency to put narrative study as the primary model of reading when it comes to understanding or analyzing poetry. Through these works, it can be inferred that the general school of thoughts and literature regarding contemporary poetry mainly focuses on the narrative study. There has been a lack of representation when it comes to the study of formalism and New Criticism in the realm of contemporary poetry, which is why a research gap of this nature should be fulfilled. The significance of conducting a study on contemporary poetry using the theory of New Criticism is because the theory itself is evolving along with the current trend of literature. Thus New Criticism can be seen as a theory that is still relevant in analyzing the current issue (Hickman and McIntrye 2012). If the study of New Criticism is not conducted, then it will eliminate the opportunity to understand the text as a whole unity. The theory of New Criticism is one of the schools of thoughts within the study of formalism, where it explores a particular reading where meaning can be derived from the text exclusively, without any input from the extrinsic elements. The methodology that will be used in analyzing and collecting the data from the three poems is mainly derived from New Criticism perspective. By doing a close reading and examining the poems and its elements, the writer will analyze the structure of the poetry by taking a closer look to dictions, including connotation and denotation of the specific words, and examining the symbols which represent the general theme of the poetry. By doing so, the writer then has resolved any tensions and conflicts
7 irony, and metaphor. One of Lang Leav's prominent aspect of symbolism is storm which serves as a force of destruction that leads to the aftermath of heartbreak. This aspect can be found in Leav's "After the Storm". Furthermore, the emphasis on metaphor usage is written by Leav in "A Love Story". The poem expresses the metaphor of heartbreak by comparing the feeling of heartbreak in search of a lost paragraph as if reading a book. Here, the word paragraph (Leav 2015, Stanza 3) serves as a metaphor for an unrepeatable moment in the past; when you flip a page, you often cannot repeat the first experience of reading. Lastly, on the matter of irony, one of the prominent use of irony can be seen in Leav's "Dead Poets" with the line "to reach with outstretched hand––– hands that will never know the weight of what they seek" (Leav 2015, Stanza 17). Memories is a piece of contemporary literary work which has successfully highlighted relevant issues that are fundamental to how we understand one of humanity most important value: love. Moreover, studies that use New Criticism as a model reading for this kind of literature has not been popular for quite some time. However, New Criticism being one of the ways to understand literature should not be overlooked (Brisman 2004). Thus, this study has proven its worth and should be deemed to conduct. 1.2. Statement of the Problems This study attempts to answer several questions relating to the issue of contemporary poetry and New Criticism, as stated below:
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- How is the issue of heartbreak depicted through the symbolism, irony, and metaphor of “After the Storm”, “A Love Story”, and “Dead Poets”?
- How is the interrelation of the three poems resolve in order to create an organic unity? 1.3. The Objective of the Study This study attempts to reaffirm several of the questions that are raised by the researcher, and those are stated as follows:
- Depiction of heartbreak as represented through symbolism, irony, and metaphor in “After the Storm”, “A Love Story”, and “Dead Poets”.
- The creation of organic unity through how tensions are resolved within the three poems in building the theme. 1.4. Significance of the Study Through conducting this study, the writer is trying to expand future research on the topic of contemporary poetry. This study also tries to fill the gap in the English department's internal repository, where Lang Leav's works have not been used as an object of research. This study also tries to assist undergraduate scholars who are also interested in studying the issue of contemporary poetry using the theory of New Criticism. Moreover, this study reveals the previously not so well
10 meaning when it comes to substantial, imaginary, real, literal, and figurative are essential in the production of meaning by the reader (Sobolev 2009). Heartbreak: According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2019), heartbreak is a feeling of crushing grief, anguish, or distress. Prose-poetry: A form of poetry that shares both combination of prose and poetry, because of this distinctive combination, prose-poetry is unique because the diction is direct, but still has the element of figures of speech (Cuddon 2013).
