Paradox Style in Edwin Arlington Robinson's

PARADOX STYLE IN EDWIN ARLINGTON

ROBINSON’S SELECTED POEMS

Submitted to Faculty of Letters, Hasanuddin University In partial fulfillment of the requirement To obtain sarjana degree In English Department

KARMILA SUYUTI WAHID

F21108012

ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT

FACULTY OF LETTER

HASANUDDIN UNIVERSITY

MAKASSAR

2013

ABSTRACT

Karmila Suyuti Wahid, 2013. Paradox Style in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Selected Poems. (supervised by R.S.M Assagaf and H. Sudarmin Harun).

The purposes of this writing are to identify the paradox in Edwin Arlinton Robinson’s selected poems and interpret the use of paradox by the author.

The writer applied a library research to collect data that are relevant to the thesis. In the process of data analysis, the writer has used descriptive method starting from reading poems several times to understand the meaning of those poem and using note-taking technique in order to collect the relevant data.

Based on the analysis, the writer has found some paradox in selected poems such as, “Strange that I did not know him” and “That friend of mine”, in An Old Story ; dead, glimmer, in The Dead Village. The writer concludes that the author in the selected poems used paradox style to explain about the meanings that are contradicted to the real meaning. The author uses this style to convey his implied messages.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Literature gets a position in our society life that function to submit a certain purpose to society. It reflects to describe about life either through physical and psyches. Literature as one of the art forms has many benefits for mankind. By reading a literary work we will get enjoyment and satisfaction in life. It will increase our knowledge or insight, enrich our spirits and make us more civilized.

Moreover it can help us to comprehend the other people, understand their difficult, suffering better and many other human qualities.

Poem is a kind of literary works which is created by composition of selected words which conceives a meaning. A poem is also a medium of communication. If we read a poem we can feel what the author feels when he or she writes the poem. The language employed in poems can reflect the idea and the life of the author.

In poetry, the poets use figurative language to express their experiences.

Figurative language in poetry also affords imaginative pleasure, intensifies readers emotion to the world constructed so that the language employed is fully informative. When we read poetry, its words can influence our emotion and feelings. This indicates the successs of a poet when it has been able to make the readers to comprehend the flom of the story within poetry. A poet writes his/her

6 poetry to give certain impression to the readers, by reading poem we can feel happy, sad, even angry.

One of figurative language is paradox. Paradox is a contrary expression. In paradox we will find contradiction from the words or situation. It is good to read especially in poetry because the reader can’t guess what the end of the poetry.For instead in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem entitled “An Old Story”. An old story tell about somone who has a friend that always praise him, but it make him envy because the friend receive the praise from others so that he hates his friend and not friendly again.He just know that actually his friend is sincere but the friend have died.

In that example writers found contradiction that people feel envious with his friend because the friend have many praise from others, whereas that praise actually because of him.It seems like sometimes we have negative thinking with our friend or family although they are kind and sincere with us, so that writers interested to analysis this case.

This is what lies behind the author takes paradox as a topic research and the title Bottom of Form “Paradox Style in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s

Selected Poems.”

1.2 Identification of the Problem

Based on background, the writer indentifies several problems as follows:

1. Paradox is a medium to express the poets ideas and feelings of the poem.

2. The reader sometimes difficult to understand the meaning of the poem,

because the symbols words.

3. The reader sometimes confuse to find the messages from the poem.

1.3 Scope of the Problem

There are many aspec which interested to discuss in that poems, but writer just focus on figurative language especially paradox style.

1.4 Research Question

The object of this analyzes will be discussed through the following problems:

1. What paradox varieties are there in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s selected

poems?

2. How is paradox influence the meaning?

1.5 Objectives of Writing

Through this analyzes, the writer intends to accomplish the following objectives:

1. To identify the paradox style in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s

selected poems.

2. To present the meaning from the paradox style that is explaining.

1.6 Sequence of Presentation

This thesis is composed of four chapters, as follows:

1. Chapter one is introduction. This chapter presents the Background,

Statement of Problems, Objectives of Writing, Scope of Problems, and

Sequence of Presentation.

2. Chapter two is literature review. This chapter describes about previous

study, Theoritical Background, Intrinsic Elements and Extrinsic

Elements.

3. Chapter four is analysis or discussion. This chapter consists of

Structural

4. Chapter five is conclusion and suggestion.

1.7 Siginificance of the study

1. This research will contribute to a better understanding of the use of

figurative language in poetry.

2. This thesis will also contribute in helping people to understand the

meanings and messages conveyed by the poets.

3. This thesis will increase appreciation of poetry for young generation

in order that they know how important the value of poetry.

4. This thesis provides information of figurative language to the readers

especially those who are interested in writing the same topics.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies

Before stepping far to this research, the writer will preview some of researche that have been done by some researcher. The research was having some similarity in some part of what will be discussed by the writer, such as the similarity of approach, the author, and the object of knowledge.

The research result are :

a. Paradox style in Roberts Frost’s selected poems by Andi Asmayanti (2011).

The selected poems are Ghost House, Fire and Ice, and Stopping by Woods

on a Snowy Evening.

In this research, the writer explains the paradox style of poems and present the significant of the paradox style that is performed in the work.

b. Figurative language and theme in Wiliam Bulten Yeats’s selected poems by

Astinana Yuliarti (2011).

In this research the writer explains the types of igurative language and theme whic is used in the Wiliam Bulten Yeats’s selected poems.

c. Poetical devices in Maya Angelou’s selected poems by Irma Zavitri (2012).

In her writing she analyses poetical devices used in the poem. In this writing the writer focuses on one of poetical device which is called figurative language.

2.2 Poetry

Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient.The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated.In all ages and all countries,poetry has be written, andeagerly read or listened to, by all conditions of people. Poetry which has the considerable strength of communication in the society become the most favorite and popular literary work in the world. The ability of poetry in entertaining, giving lesson and satisfying the reader become the main things that make it popular. Moreover it can humanize its readers through the lessons implied in it.

A poetry is a large diffused picture, comprehending the picture of life, disposed in different group and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purpose of propriety, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention.

By those definitions, the writer concludes that a poetry is a literary works built by some components and made from the things that existing in the world, either based on true story or the imagination of the author with the purpose to entertain, give lesson and satisfy the reader.

“In the last analyses, a poem is a pattern, not of sound or of movement, but experience, carefully organizes structures. It is a close knit patterns rhythm and rhyme and other sound effects, studied, repetition, close, referring images all combine to make it seamless whole. It differs from porse in that demands a special kind of attentions and awareness of the whole poem must accompany attention to each individual art.” (In Andrew, 1991 : 22)

2.3 Paradox

Paradox is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true. It may be either a situation ors a statement. In a paradoxical statement the contradiction usually stems from one of the words being used figuratively or in more than one sense.

The value of paradox is its shock value. Its seeming impossibility starles the reader imto attention and, thus, by the fact of its apparent absurdity, it underscores the truth of what is being said. It is paradoxical that one can emphasize a truth either by overstating it or understating.

An element of paradox in poetry function gives focus on the meaning of a word or a situation beyond what it first appears to be. This characteristic serves to create a new meaning in place of conventional set of words.It further serves to give value to poem as whole.

2.4 Meaning in a Poem

In the search for ways of attaining ro the total significance of a poem, the meaning of the words used is the most important of all. Obviously the poet’s prime task is so to use words that, when we read what he was written, we can understand the meaning.

Although the prime function of lexical words is to convey the national meaning, most of such words, especially when used in poetry, can be made to do

13 other work as part of their total meaning. Words can be used not onlu to denote or to describe the world outside us and the world within. We can, by our specific choice of the words open to us, convey how we feel about such thing. Words, in addition to the information they supply, may have an emotive quality, carry an emotive charge, can have undertones and overtones of feeling that they have acquired in the course of their sometimes long history.

The meaning of a poem is the experience it expresses, it is nothing less.It is useful to make a distinction between total meanings of a poem it communicates and its prose meaning. The prose meaning will not necessarily or perhaps even usually be an idea. It may be a story, it may be a description, it may be a statement of emotion, of these.

Theme is the main part in every literary works. By knowing the theme we can take and understand the idea in that literary works. The explanation of theme is also supported by Herman J. Waluyo (1978 : 106).

“Tema merupakan gagasan pokok atau subject-matter yang dikemukakan oleh penyair. Pokok pikiran atau pokok persoalan itu begitu kuat mendesak dalam jiwa penyair sehingga menjadi landasan utama pengucapannya. Jika desakan yang kuat itu berupa rasa belas kasih atau kemanusiaan, maka puisinya bertema kemanusiaan. Jika yang kuat adalah dorongan untuk memprotes ketidakadilan, maka tema puisinya adalah protes atau kritik social. Perasaan cinta atau patah hati yang kuat juga dapat melahirkan tema cinta atau tema kedudukan hati karena cinta.”

2.5 Biography of Poet “Edwin Arlington Robinson”

Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870. He described his childhood in Maine as "stark and unhappy": his parents, having wanted a girl, did not name him until he was six months old, when they visited a holiday resort; other vacationers decided that he should have a name, and selected a man from Arlington, Massachusetts to draw name out of a hat.

Robinson's early difficulties led many of his poems to have a dark pessimism and his stories to deal with "an American dream gone awry". His brother Dean died of a drug overdose. His other brother, Herman, a handsome and charismatic man, married the woman Edwin himself loved, but Herman suffered business failures, became an alcoholic, and ended up estranged from his wife and children, dying impoverished in a charity hospital in 1901. Robinson's poem

"Richard Cory" is thought to refer to this brother.

In late 1891, at the age of 21, Edwin entered Harvard University as a special student. He took classes in English, French, and Shakespeare, as well as one on Anglo-Saxon that he later dropped. His mission was not to get all A's, as he wrote his friend Harry Smith, "B, and in that vicinity, is a very comfortable and safe place to hang".

His real desire was to get published in one of the Harvard literary journals.

Within the first fortnight of being there, The Harvard Advocate published

Robinson's "Ballade of a Ship". He was even invited to meet with the editors, but when he returned he complained to his friend Mowry Saben, "I sat there among them, unable to say a word". Robinson's literary career had false-started.

Edwin's father, Edward, died after Edwin's first year at Harvard. Edwin returned to Harvard for a second year, but it was to be his last one as a student there. Though short, his stay in Cambridge included some of his most cherished experiences, and there he made his most lasting friendships. He wrote his friend

Harry Smith on June 21, 1893:

I suppose this is the last letter I shall ever write you from Harvard. The thought seems a little queer, but it cannot be otherwise. Sometimes I try to imagine the state my mind would be in had I never come here, but I cannot. I feel that I have got comparatively little from my two years, but still, more than I could get in Gardiner if I lived a century.

Robinson had returned to Gardiner by mid-1893. He had plans to start writing seriously. In October he wrote his friend Gledhill:

Writing has been my dream ever since I was old enough to lay a plan for an air castle. Now for the first time I seem to have something like a favorable opportunity and this winter I shall make a beginning.

With his father gone, Edwin became the man of the household. He tried farming and developed a close relationship with his brother's wife Emma

Robinson, who after her husband Herman's death moved back to Gardiner with her children. She twice rejected marriage proposals from Edwin, after which he permanently left Gardiner. He moved to New York, where he led a precarious existence as an impoverished poet while cultivating friendships with other writers, artists, and would-be intellectuals. In 1896 he self-published his first book, The

Torrent and the Night Before, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Robinson meant it as a surprise for his mother. Days before the copies arrived, Mary Palmer

Robinson died of diphtheria.

His second volume, The Children of the Night, had a somewhat wider circulation. Its readers included President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, who recommended it to his father. Impressed by the poems and aware of Robinson's straits, Roosevelt in 1905 secured the writer a job at the New York Customs

Office. Robinson remained in the job until Roosevelt left office.

Gradually his literary successes began to mount. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s. During the last twenty years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where several women made him the object of their devoted attention, but he maintaineda solitary life and never married. Robinson died of cancer on April 6, 1935 in the

New York Hospital (now New York Cornell Hospital) in New York City.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Methode of Collecting Data

The activity collecting data is very important to find the best data. In collecting data, writer uses literature that is by reading from the object of research.

The primer data obtained from the poetry by Edwin Arlington Robinson and the secondary data obtained from other sources such as books and other materials related to research object.

3.2 Method of Data Analysis

Before writing this simple thesis, writer observes some collection of thesis in library which are about related with the way the writer writes the thesis.

Methode that used in this research is library research. There are some techniques writer uses to collect data in order to be able to analyse this poetry. There are as follow :

1. First of all writer reads the poetry continuously of Edwin Arlington

Robinson’s selected poems and found paradox style.

2. The writer classified the data based on the kind of paradox style in those

poems.

3. The writer analyze the meaning from paradox style in Edwin Arlington

Robinson’s selected poems.

4. Find book about literature and searched in internet about that poems.

CHAPTER IV

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the writer presents the analysis on paradox style in Edwin

Arlington Robinson’s selected poems that has been mentioned in statement of the problems in chapter one. The writer will describe the kinds paradox style that

Edwin Arlington Robinson has applied in An Old Story, The Dead Village, and

Reuben Bright and the meaning from the paradox that poems reveals.

Title of the Paradox Sentences couplet, line Meaning

poem

An Old Story Strange that I did not know him then. The first couplet, First line means he didn‟t know him or

line 1 their behavior as unfriendly it is mean that

they behave towards you in unkind or

That friend of mine ! The first couplet, rather hostile way. While the second line

line 2 means he is the man‟s friend. This is as if

you don‟t know someone , or the person

is someone that you have never met

before whereas he is the people that you

know well, maybe because any

something wrong. It is contrast.

My envy of the praise he had The second The third and fourth line in the second

couplet, line 3 stanza beside are also contrast. That

lines means about someone who has

For praising me The second stanza, jeaolous with his friend because that

line 4 friend gave many praise from others while

actually that praise because of him.This is

something about someone feel angry or

bitter because they think that another

person is trying to take a lover or friend,

or a possession, away from them. This is

the feeling you have when you wish you

could have the same thing or quality that

someone else has.

Title of the Paradox in Satnza Couplet, Line Meaning

poem

Reuben Bright Because he was a butcher and The first couplet, It has literal meaning that the man,

thereby line 1-4 Reuben Bright who is rough, violent. And

Did earn an honest living (and did insensitive. People in a very cruel way.

right), He behaves in an unpleasant, unfriendly,

I would not have you think that or slightly cruel way, he does not deserve

Reuben Bright it, that is very bad and deliberately

Was any more brute than you or I; harmfulto people causes pain or distress.

It refers to the situation which is a feeling For when they told him that his wife The first couplet, of extreme sadness. It is sudden feeling must die, line 5-8

He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright, of fear, especially the fear that when

And cried like a great baby half that night, something unpleasant surprises him, it is

And made the women cry to see him the death of his wife. cry. That is contrast when the cruel,

unkind, have the heart to, and more

brute man was look so pity, very sad,

and cried like a great baby so that

made the woman cry to see him cry.

He does not harm or punish someone

they have power over, people feel very

sorry for him.

The Dead Village And there were little childern here to The first couplet, That line mean about the life of the village

play, line 5-8 as generally, the should condition in a

With small soft hands that once did village or something pleasing in a rural.

keep in tune This is where everyone is always happy.

The strings that stretch from heaven, Particular activities which people regularly

till too soon do during their lives. That situation (life of

The change came, and music passed the village) gives an impression of

away. excitement, energy, or cherrfulness.

Now there is nothing but the ghosts ofThe second This line refers with the condition which things, couplet, line 1-4 no sign of life, an activity is all over, it is No life, no love, no childern, and no completely finished in a village. men;

And over the forgotten place there

25 clings

The strange and unrememberable light There are contradiction that poem

presents, it is different situations in

the first and second stanza. Most of

first stanza tell about nice condition in

a village which people and children

can live and play there. But in the

second stanza emphasize that is

happening, boring, or unpleasant.

Title of the Paradox Words Couplet, Line Meaning

Poem

The Dead Village Glimmer First couplet, line 4 The word “ glimmer” has a literal meaning

that is something shine or something nice

and good. It produces or reflects a

faint,often unsteady light

First couplet, line 4 The word “ dead” is a description of Dead something is frightening and dark. But,

the author has another intention by

choosing the words in the poem. It is

contrast.

Ballad by The Weak First couplet, line 6 If someone is „weak‟, they are not healthy

Fire or do not have good muscles, so that they

cannot move quickly or carry heavy

things.Or you mean that they are not very

confident or determined, so that they are

often frightened or worried,or easily

influenced by other people.

Glow First couplet, line 6 A glow is a pink colour on a person’s

face, usually because they are healthy or

have been exercising. Or if you feel a

glow of satisfication or achievement, you

have a strong feeling of pleasure because

of something that you have done or

that has happened.

The author puts “weak” then “glow” in

the poem as paradox words. “And

with a weak, remindful glow” the

author hid the meaning behind the

selection of words used in the poem

and presented two words that appear

contrast literally.

Melancholy The second Melancholy is an intense feeling of

couplet, sadness which strongly affects your

line 1 behaviour and attitudes. Or if someone

feels or looks melancholy, they feel or

look very sad.

Glee The second Glee is a feeling of happiness and

couplet, line 1 excitement, often caused by someone

else’s misfortune.

This is contradiction when the word “

melancholy” and “glee” puts in one

line. “Then, with a melancholy glee”.

But, the author want to reveal the

deeper meaning in that poem about

sadnees and happening at the

moment.

Game The fifth couplet, Game can describe a situation that you

line 1 do not treat seriously.

The fifth couplet, Truth is something that is belived to be Truth line 2 true,or this is all the facts about it, rather

than things that are imagined or invented.

One of the line in the poem describes

about that something just like a

“game” and in the next line tell us

about the “truth” at least. This is

contrast.

Dear Friends Praise The second Praise is what you say or write about

couplet, line 3 someone when you are praising them,

express approval for their achievements

or qualities.

Deplores The second Deplore is something you think it is very

couplet, line 3 wrong or immoral

“To praise the very thing that he

deplores.” This is contradiction when

you praise or proud with something

that someone feel regret about that.

Shame The second Shame is an uncomfortable feeling that

couplet, line 5 you get when you have done something

wrong or embarrassing, or when

someone close to you has, expressions

such us shame on you and shame on

him to indicate that someone ought to

feel shame for something they have said

or done.Or , if someone puts you to

shame, they make you feel ashamed

because they do something much better

than you do.

Win The second Win is something such as a competition,

couplet, line 5 battle, or argument, you defeat those

people you are competing or fighting

against, or you do better than everyone

else involved.If you win something that

you want or need , you succeed in getting

it.

The author puts “shame” then “win” in

the poem as paradox words. “The

shame I win for singing is all mine” the

author hid the meaning behind the

selection of words used in the poem

and presented two words that appear

contrast literally.

4.2 Analysis the Selected Poems

In this part, the write analyze those poems generally by viewing some aspects of the poem. It aimed to reveals the meaning behind the words which build up the poem.

4.2.1 An Old Story

The theme of the poem is talking much about friendship, abandon, praise, and jealousy. There are some words that the author uses to describe the theme in this poem. Those words found in that poem are shown as follows:

Strange that I did not know him then

That friend of mine !

I did not even show him then

One friendly sign ;

In the first line of this poem describe about someone who could not recognize his own friend, he feels weird with someone he knows. It is because the presumption and prejudice to that person. This idea is supported by the third and fourth line.

I did not even show him then

One friendly sign.

This shows a contradictive ideas because for someone who we have already know, we should be friendly and greet him/her, according to proper social interaction.But in this contradictive line, the author wants to show that something happened between these two friend that caused,they look like never met before.

This shows even if we are closed each other (to someone) and there is something happen out of our control or make another people unconvinience, the relationship could be broken . That fenomena always happen in human being life

Then the second line, it states :

But cursed him for the ways he had

To make me see

My envy of the praise he had

For praising me

This line shows us that sometimes human being make presumptions negative prejudice (presumption) to their closed friend. Eventhough, they have behaved very good to us. It means, human beings will never felt satisfy in terms to what they have achieved, they always need and hope something more.

This line also describes us that sometimes human beings did not realize the sincerity of their closed friends. We sometimes think that people want to take

36 advantages from us or we distrust our beloved friend, so at the end we serve them with unfriendly manner.

Then, in the third line of this poem presents a regret. The regret always come later on. Wisdom says, we will feel how valuable someone is when he/she left us.

This is also supported by the last fourh line of the poem

I would have rid the earth of him

Once, in my pride…

I never knew the worth of him

Until he died…..

Most of people will regret themselves when there is something valuable lost from them. We have just realized that when we don’t have it any more or any longer such as sick people long for healthy people, and our beloved friends whom we usually ignored when we still closed, and we feel so desperate and sad even we feel something so great leave us when they are not together or stand beside us any more. Like the last line in this poem

I never knew the worth of him

Until he died…..

4.2.2 Reuben Bright

This poem tell about that “ Don’t judge the people only from its cover.”

The line that shows the theme of this poem are :

Because he was a butcher and thereby

Dis earn an honest living (and did right),

I would not have you think that Reuben Bright

Was any more a brute than you or I;

Those lines above describe us about the brutality of a man called Reuben

Bright. The author characterized the Reuben Bright as a cruel man, sadistic, and very brutal.

And then, in the fifth until sixth line in the first stanza :

For when they told him that his wife must die

He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,

This line show us that someone who is cruel (ful of cruelity) also can feel the fierce and sadness because basically those two things is actually natural for human beings. The author also shows that every human beings will be very desperate with bad things that happen to the beloved friends. No matter how cruel

38 and rude they are when there is someone meaningful for them touch his/her heart, feeling of uneasy will appear certainly.

In the seventh and eigth line of this poem:

And cried like a great baby half that night,

And made the women cry to see him cry

The lines above emphasizes how much the sadness of a man called

Reuben Bright who is cruel , but when someone that he really loves gone he will he sad. In this poem tells us that Reuben Bright is left by his wife.

This poem also emphasize that I here is no one can judge or assess and predict what is someone’s feeling or what is inside some one’s heart. Because human beings can only asses or judge what they can hear and seet but they don’t have any ability to measure and asses what is inside someone’s heart.

In the last stanza, Edwin uses his lines to explain the sadness to be deeper.

He says

And after she was dead, and he had paid

The singers and the sexton and the rest,

He packed a lot of thing that she had made

Most mournfully away in an old chest

Of hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs

In with them, and tore down the slaughter house

In that last stanza Edwin describes the condition the sadness hardfully like you lost all of things that can make you be reminded with someone or something which make so sad. Maybe you throw that in a place and you can not take it againt, or some people leave their place to remove the moments and look for new and fresh ambience that make them forget it their hurt incident.

He packed a lot of thing that she had made

Most mournfully away in an old chest

4.2.3 The Dead Village

This poem is an extreme poem which taken some contrast words such glimmer and dead. The general theme is talking about the deconstruction of the wheter it will be ended by glimmer or dead. Beside, it is only one of possibilities that may destroyed the world still remained other possibilities but the author does not mentioned it in the poem.

The writer found some words in the poem that described the theme.

Here there is death. But even here, they say,

Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon

As desolate as ever the dead moon

Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men, were gay;

And there were little children here to play,

With small soft hands that once did keep in tune

In the first two lines Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The Dead Village” , the speaker presents two condition and situation for the life of the village: one by happiness and the other by sadness. Many scientists hold the belief that the end of the world will come two forms , “either the earth would be incinerated , or a permanentice age woul gradually annihilate all life on hearth.

Although, one interpretation of Robinson wants the reader to contemplate therefore destructive powers of dead and glimmer. By changing the tense of the poem, Robinson forces the reader to look back at the first two lines and consider a new meaning. The speaker goes on to relate glimmer to the human emotion of desire and dead hate.

Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things,

No life, no love, no children, and no men;

And over the forgotten place there clings

The strange and unrememberable light

That is in dreams. The music failed, and then

God frowned, and shut the village from His sight

This poem also presents about the good things is not always well opposite is not necessarily what it looks bad and it's not ugly either. Like wisdom

Sometimes a little bad is good. This is common we find in the life, as an example of someone who looks so perfect and has all the wonderful nature on one's view of the world as a beautiful, rich, and famous, was also able to end his life by suicide as tragic. That Phenomena such as one poem of Edwin’s poem entitled

Richard Cory which tells of a man named Richard Cory who has a life that is perfect for the size of those suburbs. A lot of people around him want to have a life like Richard Cory who is someone very rich and clever. In addition, he also admired and respected because he is someone who is friendly, generous, and gentle. But at the end of the poem was unexpected, which tells us that the poem

Richard Cory is suddenly fired a gun to his own head when he arrived at his house. That is basically man will never be satisfied with what he had.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Based on the analysis of the data which have been presented in the preceding chapter, the writer has found out some conclusions after analyzing the

Paradox Style in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Selected Poems. The conclusions are such follow :

1. In analyzing the selected poems( An Old Story, Reuben Bright, and

The Dead Village), the writer has found some sentences, couplet, and

word that indicate as paradox, as the following,

 An Old Story:

Paradox Sentences : Strange that I did not know him then paradox

with That friend of mine, My envy of the

praise he had, paradox with For Praising me

 Reuben Bright :

Paradox in Stanza : Because he was butcher and thereby

Did earn an honest living (and did right)

I would not have you think that Reuben Bright

Was any more brute than you or I

Paradox with

For when they told him that his wife must die,

He stared at them, and shook with grief nig

And cried like a great baby half that nig

And made the woman cry to see him cry

 The Dead Village :

Paradox in Word : Dead and glimmer

Paradox in Stanza : And there were little children here to play,

With small soft hands that once did keep in

tune

The strings that stretch from heaven, till too

soon

The change came, and music passed away

Paradox by

Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things,

No life, no love, no children, and no men

And over the forgotten place there clings

The strange and unrememberable light

2. The author used paradox style in the work in order to hide the real

meaning of the word, so the reader will be interested is realizing.

3. All of the selected poems are the best examples of paradox style.

Paradox is a figurative language that contains appareantly

contradiction or incompatible elements.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

An Old Story by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Strange that I did not know him then.

That friend of mine!

I did not even show him then

One friendly sign;

But cursed him for the ways he had

To make me see

My envy of the praise he had

For praising me.

I would have rid the earth of him

Once, in my pride...

I never knew the worth of him

Until he died.

APPENDIX 2

Reuben Bright by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Because he was a butcher and thereby

Did earn an honest living (and did right),

I would not have you think that Reuben Bright

Was any more a brute than you or I;

For when they told him that his wife must die,

He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,

And cried like a great baby half that night,

And made the women cry to see him cry.

And after she was dead, and he had paid

The singers and the sexton and the rest,

He packed a lot of things that she had made

Most mournfully away in an old chest

Of hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs

In with them, and tore down the slaughter-house.

APPENDIX 3

The Dead Village by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Here there is death. But even here, they say,

Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon

As desolate as ever the dead moon

Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men were gay;

And there were little children here to play,

With small soft hands that once did keep in tune

The strings that stretch from heaven, till too soon

The change came, and the music passed away.

Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things,—

No life, no love, no children, and no men;

And over the forgotten place there clings

The strange and unrememberable light

That is in dreams. The music failed, and then

God frowned, and shut the village from His sight

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Walter. 1958. The writers on w riting. Great Britain: Phoenix House Ltd.

Andrew, Richard. 1991. The Problem with poetry. Bristol : Open University Press.

Waluyo, Herman J. 1990. Teori dan Apresiasi Puisi. Jakarta : Airlangga.

Asmayanti, Andi. 2011. Paradox style in Roberts Frost’s selected poems. Makassar: Skripsi Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Hasanuddin.

Yuliarti, Astinana. 2011. Figurative language and theme in Wiliam Bulten Yeats’s selected poems. Makassar: Skripsi Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Hasanuddin.

Zavitri, Irma. 2012. Poetical devices in Maya Angelou’s selected poems. Makassar: Skripsi Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Hasanuddin.

Millar and Currie. 1970. The Language of Poetry. London: Heinemann Educational Books.

Perrine, Laurence. 1983. Literature, structure, sound and sense. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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------. 2010. Edwin Arlington-poems, biography, Quotes. (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/edwin-arlington). viewed on 29th November 2012