IN PHILIP LARKIN’S POEM ‘THE NORTH SHIP’
Muhammad Rifqi
Dian Nuswantoro University, Semarang
ABSTRACT
In this article, ‘The North Ship’ written by Philip Larkin is a poem that is tried to be examined by using stylistic approach proposed by Leech and Short. Stylistic study is a field of empirical enquiry in that linguistic theories are used to analyze literary text (Leech and Short; 1994 and 1996). Considering that stylistics deals with a very broad area, this study is limited in two aspects namely foregrounding and cohesion.
The whole lines of ‘The North Ship’ were examined line by line to find out foregrounding techniques used by its writer. Any linguistic features such as diction were classified. Likewise, the poetic features of the poem were identified. Both linguistic and poetic features were then analyzed and described based on the given theory.
In addition, the cohesive devices in the poem were identified and traced. They were described one by one based on the classification given in Halliday and Hasan Model. The ties among them were described and showed in the cohesive links and chains
Based on the analysis of foregrounding and cohesion, the interpretation of the poem was finally made. The findings showed that foregrounding and cohesion are very supportive each other in creating meaning of the examined poem.
Keywords: stylistics, foregrounding, deviation, parallelism, cohesive devices
Introduction
Understanding poems sometimes is not such an easy thing to do for most of the students or readers in general. This difficulty is due to the condensed language in poem. Other feature of poem is that it has two levels of meaning namely denotative meaning or surface meaning and connotative meaning or deep meaning (Niederlander, http://www.stlcc.cc.mo.us/fp/writingc/pdfs/poemhowto.pdf). Understanding poem, in both levels of meaning, cannot be reached without understanding the meaning at the surface level. Surface or denotative meaning has to be gained first before going further into the deep meaning. The deep meaning concerns much on other poetic devices such as metaphor, symbol, etc.
This study deals with the analysis of literary works especially poem by using stylistics covering linguistic aspects within a literary work. One important aspect in stylistic study is foregrounding. Foregrounding is the psychological effect that is felt by reader when one reads or hears deviation in a text. The deviation occurs when what is read or part that is read breaks the normal linguistic rules, norms or expectations (Short, 1996:11). Furthermore he states that foregrounding is also brought about by repetition and parallelism. In conveying the intended meaning, a writer may use this foregrounding in his text.
Furthermore, as indicated above a stylistic study on literary works deals much with the linguistic aspects of a text. Poem, like other text types, is also meant to convey meaning. A poem is characterized by a specific way of writing realized in lines, stanzas and sub-stanzas. “Stanzas that are equal to sentences constitute poem as a text” (Talib, http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/lsl01. html). They are bound together to form the whole meaning of a poem. Concerning this, an effort that can be done in terms of linguistic aspects is the application of cohesive devises in creating the cohesive text. In analyzing cohesive devices, one should know how they work in poem to create the whole meaning of a particular text.
In addition, text, according to Halliday and Hasan (1976:2), is a “semantic unit” and it must not be considered as a “unit of form but of meaning”. It does not consist of sentences but it is “realized by” or “encoded in sentences”. A text is not determined by its length. It may be found in various forms including “spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue” regardless its length.
Because poem is consider as a text, there must be parts of the building block of a poem that constitute its whole meaning. Readers understand the whole meaning of a poem by relating the whole parts that constitute it. The compounding parts are “bound together” to create meaning (Leech and Short, 1981:79,243-4). This is the way cohesion works to create the unified meaning of a text. Likewise, Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) assert that “cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.” They also propose five grammatical and lexical strategies for showing how the meanings of parts of different clauses are related to each other such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion (Johnstone, 2002:101).
Larkin’s poem, “The North Ship” is analyzed in this study. This poem was written in the early period of his poet career. This poem is interesting because it became a token for the beginning of Larkin’s career. In this poem, the different characteristics from those of other poets’ works started to show. On the other hand the influence of other poets prior to his era still can be seen such as the exploitation of nature as an object for his poem ‘The North Ship’.
To sum up, this study deals with how foregrounding works to create a specific effect intended by a poet and how cohesion works to create a cohesive text in ‘The North Ship’ written by Philip Larkin. The analysis of foregrounding is worth doing to see how the foregrounding used to create a specific aspect intended by the poet (writer). Through this analysis, some aspects of foregrounding created to attract the researcher’s attention are identified and then analyzed.
The objective of the research is to describe the foregrounding features used to create the intended meaning in Larkin’s poem ‘The North Ship’ and the cohesive devices used to link the words together to create the intended meaning in ‘The North Ship’.
This article is intended to give additional horizon in applying text analysis related to literary works especially poems through foregrounding and cohesion. The findings of this study, of course, are of case specific for the examined literary texts. They, however, may be applicable for other studies concerning other poems and different types of literary works.
A descriptive-qualitative approach was applied in examining the poem under scrutiny. The essential foregrounded elements of style used in Philip Larkin’s poem under studying are described to make the objective interpretation of their meanings. In this study, the endeavor to understand foregrounding created by Philip Larkin in his poem, “The North Ship” is the first focus. It needs to be identified in terms of deviation and parallelism as suggested by Short (1996) in the study of style. It is worth doing since foregrounding is the most outstanding technique used by a writer to create an intended effect. After identifying all the foregrounded aspects realized in the poems, they are analyzed as well.
The units of analysis in this study are classified into two main division, i.e. foregrounding and cohesion. Foregrounding covers linguistic deviation and parallelism. Meanwhile, those related to cohesion are all types of cohesive devices
The data were collected through the extensive reading of the poem “The North Ship”. The collected data then were analyzed through the using of procedure suggested by Short (1996) namely initial overview of the poem, identification of the specific stylistic features, identification of the cohesive devices (using Halliday and Hasan’s Model of Cohesion), and interpretation of the poem
Initial Overview (Paraphrase) of ‘The North Ship’
This poem consists of 25 lines, which are divided into 6 stanzas. The speaker in this poem cannot be identified as no further information can be found through out the poem. If the speaker cannot be identified in the poem, the poet himself is considered a speaker or voice of the poem. The speaker tells the intended audience (or probably us as the readers) about something that he witnessed all in narrative styles since all the sentences are in past tenses.
The first stanza of this poem begins with the speaker, ‘I’, introducing a story that he saw three ships go sailing. One of the ships was rigged for a long journey (line [l] 5). In this line, he introduces the ship that he focuses on in the following stanzas. It is ‘the north ship’ that he means. It can be identified since it ‘was rigged for a long journey’. Later in the poem, the last three stanzas are dominated by the explanation of ‘the north ship’. In this stanza, he also tells that the nature is beautiful with ‘the wind rose in the morning sky’ (l. 4).
The second stanza delineates the first ship among the three that the speaker introduces in the preceding stanza. This ship sailed to the west that the speaker indicates as ‘a rich country’ (l. 9). Again, according to him, the nature is still beautiful and friendly as ‘the running sea’ directed it powerfully and ‘the wind’ blew and carried it to ‘a rich country’.
The third stanza continues with explaining ‘the second ship’. This ship sailed towards ‘the east’. On the contrary, the nature accompanying ‘second ship’ does not remain the same as that in the first and second stanzas. It became unfriendly and frightening as the sea started quaking and ‘the wind hunted‘ the north ship ‘like a beast’. The north ship was really ‘captivated’ in such condition (l. 13).
In the fourth stanza, the depiction of ‘the north ship’ that has been introduced in the end of the first stanza (l. 5) is intensified further. The third ship can be inferred as ‘the north ship’ since it ‘drove towards the north’. The negative situation is also intensified here by utilizing the nature that accompanied its journey such as ‘the darkening sea’ (l. 15), ‘no breath of wind came forth’, and ‘the decks shone frostily’.
The natural condition becomes more intensive in the fifth stanza as the ‘sky rose high and black’ / ‘Over the proud unfruitful sea’ (ll. 18 and 19). The delineation of ‘the north ship’ alters for awhile into the first and the second ships that sailed ‘east and west’. They ‘came back’ in two conditions e.g. ‘Happily or unhappily’ (ll. 20 and 21).
After the description switched to the first and the second ship in the last two lines of the fifth stanza, the last stanza, again, focuses on ‘the north ship’. On the contrary, instead of coming back, ‘the north ship’ kept on sailing ‘wide and far’ (l. 22) to the north and ‘into an unforgiving sea’ (l. 23), ‘under a fire-spilling star’ (l.24) as if it will never come back as the first and the second ships. This seems to be the reason why the poet repeats line five ‘And one was rigged for a long journey’ in the last line ‘And it was rigged for a long journey’ even though the lines are not exactly the same.
In the whole poem, it can be observed that Larkin make a movement from positive to negative image of the nature surrounding the ships. At the beginning of the poem he explain the nature is beautiful and friendly indicated by some words and phrases such as ‘lifting (means exiting) sea’ in ‘the morning sky’, ‘running sea’ which is helpful to carry’ the west ship. (1st and 2nd stanzas) This situation, then, changes into such a frightening nature that is indicated by some words or phrases like ‘the quaking sea’ and ‘the wind hunted’ the east ship ‘like a beast’ (3rd stanza). Such negative condition of the nature is then fortified in the 4th stanza indicated by phrases ‘the darkening sea’, ‘no breath of wind came forth’, The negative mood also can be found in half part of the 5th stanza by ‘the northern sky rose high and black’, ‘the proud and fruitful sea’. Finally, in the 6th stanza the negative tone is indicated by phrases ‘wide and far’, unforgiving sea, and fire-spilling star’.
Foregrounding, Deviation, and Parallelism
There are some foregrounded parts of the text can be found in “The North Ship” through figures of speech, sound repetition, rhyme parallelism, (sentence. phrase) structural parallelism, and syllabic parallelism.
In terms of deviation, the poem “The North Ship” applied two types of figures of speech such as personification and simile. The use of personification can be seen in ‘the running sea’ (meaning the sea that runs) [l. 7]. In this phrase, the poet considers sea (the inanimate thing) as a person that can run. This also deviates for it is an unusual collocation. In the normal rules, the ‘sea {water)’ usually collocates with ‘flow’.
In line 12, ‘the wind hunted it like a beast’ (meaning the wind hunted the ship), the poet considers wind as a person that can hunt something such as animal. This line also indicates the use of figure of speech ‘simile’. It can be seen from the use of word ‘like’ to compare wind with beast.
Personification is also found in line 19, ‘the proud unfruitful sea’. This indicates personification as it personifies the ‘sea’ having the human qualities ‘proud’. In other words, the poet considers the sea as human since the word ‘proud’ is usually used for human’s attribute.
Another deviation that can be identified is internal deviation concerning the number of syllables in each line. At the beginning of the poem (ll. 2 to 5) the numbers of the syllables are 8, 8, 9, and 9 consecutively. In the second stanza (lines 6 to 9) the patterns are 8, 8, 8, and 8 while in the third stanza (lines 10 to 13) they are 9, 8, 9, and 8. In the fourth stanza (ll. 14 to 17) the numbers of syllable in each line are 8, 9, 7, and 7. Similarly, in the fifth stanza (ll. 18 to 21) the pattern is 8, 8, 7, and 8. In the last stanza (lines 22 to 25) the pattern is 7, 8, 7 and 9. These patterns indicate the orderliness move towards the disorderliness.
Parallelism is found in the use of rhymes. The rhyming in each stanza through the whole poem is ‘abab’ (first stanza), cbcb (second stanza), dbdb (third stanza), ebeb (fourth stanza), fbfb (fifth stanza) and gbgb (sixth stanza), This shows that the rhymes are very dynamic. The second and the fourth lines in each stanza are remained the same. It creates the image of the ‘sea wave’. They also have the same characteristics as the sea water that is described by the ‘wavy rhymes’. These rhyming patterns are intentionally used by the poet to attract the reader’s attention in terms of the sound pattern.
The number of syllables in each line are also found very dynamic that can be presented consecutively as the followings: the first stanza (8, 8, 9, 9), the second stanza (8, 8, 8, 8), the third stanza (9, 8, 9, 8), the fourth stanza (8, 9, 7, 7), the fifth stanza (8, 8, 7, 8) and the sixth stanza (8, 8, 7, 9). It can be seen that at the beginning (1st stanza to 3rd stanza) they form regular patterns but from the fourth to the sixth stanza they form irregular patterns. This also creates an image of the sea waves which is delineated in the poem. This can be inferred that at the beginning the situation runs smoothly and then it is followed by a chaotic situation.
Another foregrounding aspect created by the poet is the extensive use of alliteration. Alliteration is a repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds. If the poem is carefully observed, the alliteration can be found almost in every line throughout the whole poem. The alliteration here is realized by the repetition of two fricative consonant sounds – /s/ [a voiceless blade-alveolar fricative consonant] and /S/ [voiceless palato-alveolar fricative] – that imitates the sound of a blowing wind. Therefore, this contributes to our understanding about the situation created by the poet in his poem that the wind blew accompanying the journey. The followings are the examples taken from the first stanza of the poem:
I saw three ships go sailing by,
Over the sea, the lifting sea,
And the wind rose in the morning sky,
And one was rigged for a long journey.
The above shadowing letters indicate the sound alliteration. Likewise, they also create auditory imagery that contributes to the readers’ feeling when they read or hear the poem. This will also intensify the readers’ feeling when they experience the poem through reading or hearing it.
The use of enjambment is also important to be stated here. Enjambment is unfinished line which is used to create tension in poem. The examples of enjambments can be seen between lines 2 and 3, lines 6 and 7, lines 10 and 11, lines 14 and 15, lines 18 and 19, lines 20 and 21, and lines 22 and 23.
Analysis of Cohesion in ‘The North Ship’
The chains of cohesive devices which continue from lines 1-25 can be presented as follows:
#1 (three) ships [l.2] à (The North ) Ship [l.1] à (And) one [l.5] à (The third) ship [l.14] à decks [l.17] à The third [l.22] à it [l.25] ; à (The first) ship [l.6] à ships [l.20] à (The second) ship [l.10] à it [l.12];
#2 (go) sailing [l.2] à journey [l.5] à turned (towards) [l.6] à (the) running (sea) à carried (to) [l.9] turned (towards) [l.10] à drove (towards) [l.14] à came (forth) [l.16] à came (back) [l.20] à went (wide and far) [l.22] à (long) journey [l.25]
#3 (the) sea [l.3] à (the lifting) sea [l.2] à wind [l.4] à morning (sky) [l.4] à (over the) sea [l.l7] à (the running) sea [l.7] à wind [l.8] à (over the) sea [l.15] à (the darkening) sea [l.15] à (breath) of wind [l.16] à (the northern) sky [l.18] à unfruitful) sea [l.19] à (unforgiving) sea [l.23] à (fire spilling) star [l.24]
#4 (wind) rose [l.4] à hunted [l.13] à breath (of wind) [l.16] à (sky) rose [l.18]
#5 (the) west à rich country [l.9] à (the) east [l.10] à (the) north [l.14] à (the) northern [l.18] à east [l.20] à (and) west [l.20],
#6 shone [l.17] à fire-spilling star [l.24]
#7 anchor [l.13] à captivity [l.13]
#8 rigged [l.2] à rigged [l.25]
#9 darkening (sea) [l.15] à no (breath of wind) [l.16] à (shone) frostily [l.17] à high and black [l.18] à unfruitful (sea) [l.19] à unhappily [l.21] à wide and far [l.22] à unforgiving (sea) [l.23]
#10 the wind rose in the morning sky [l.4] à Happily [l.21]
Discussion of the entire lines of ‘The North Ship’
After analyzing the cohesion in ‘the North Ship’, the following discussion presents how cohesive bonds in the whole lines to constitute the meaning. As it was shown in the above line-by-line analysis, ‘The North Ship’ is used as a main word (phrase) followed by the entire lines. It is used as a cataphoric reference to refer to thing out side the text. In other word, it refers to the context (not the text itself) outside the text that is known by the poet. When reading the first line (title) we as readers have not known yet what the poet means by using such word as the title. One thing that can be understood intuitively based on our knowledge is that the poem is about a ship. Furthermore, some words having relation to ship come across our mind in order to understand the poem we are about to read. For literary-competent readers, they might relate their knowledge with the phrase in the title ‘The North Ship’. They might try to infer the meaning of the poem as well. However there is a big question why ‘The North Ship’ is used for the poem’s title. it will be disclosed gradually when we come to the end of the discussion. At the initial stage of our discussion, there is only one thing we should keep in mind is that the focus of the poem is, of course, the north ship. This, then, raises another question, “How the poet makes it into being?” Let us continue to the next stage of our discussion.
As stated in the above analysis that ‘The North Ship’ is used as a starting point to enter the poem and gain the meaning. Based on the line-by-line analysis conducted above, some words can be mentioned as subordinate co-hyponyms, collocations, and nominal repetitions of the word (phrase) ‘The North Ship’ can be stated among others are ‘go sailing’ [l.2], ‘turned towards’ [ll.6,10], ‘drove towards’ (l.15], ‘came back’ [l.20], and went [l.22], ‘(the lifting) sea’ [l.3], ‘(the) sea’ [l.7], ‘(the running) sea’ [l.7], ‘(the) sea’ [l.11], ‘(the quaking) sea’ [l.11], ‘(the) sea’ [l.15], ‘(the darkening) sea’ [l.15], and ‘(the unforgiving) sea’ [l.23], ‘anchor’ [l.13], ‘decks’ [l.17], and ‘rigged’ [ll.5 and 25]. The above cohesive bonds are intertwined together to enable us to understand the meaning.
The initial understanding we get from this is that the poet (as the voice or speaker in the poem) told us his experience of seeing the three ships namely “west ship”, “east ship” and “north ship”. To ease our understanding, we named the three ships imitating how the poet named the third ship as ‘the north ship’. The first ship is given named ‘west ship’ since it sailed towards the west while ‘the second ship is named ‘the east ship’ based on the consideration that the ship sailed towards the east. All the ships, according to the poet, went sailing. He observed the ships go sailing since they were prepared.
How was the sea like? Again according to the poet, the sea at the beginning was lifting with ‘the wind rose in the morning sky’. It can be inferred that the situation delineated by the poet at the beginning is wonderful.
Still in the first stanza, suddenly the poet introduces (foreshadows) the direction to where he is going to go in the last line of the first stanza ‘And one was rigged for a long journey’. This line is very crucial as it gives shadow to where the poem will be directed. Why is it crucial? It is crucial since the other two ships have not been mentioned yet except a few and in a very general way (i.e. the three ships). But what the poet does in [l.5] make it more obvious that the ship that ‘was rigged for a long journey’ is very important.
The second stanza begins with pointing out one of ‘the three ships’ introduced earlier in line 2. ‘The first ship turned towards the west.’ There is a lexical repetition in this line shown by the occurrence of (the first) ‘ship’. The phrase ‘turned towards’ is used as synonymous lexical cohesion to tie the previous ‘go sailing by’ in line 2, the first stanza. Likewise, the phrase ‘over the sea, the running sea’ is simply repeated as that in line 3. The word ‘running’ [l.7] is a synonym of ‘lifting [l.3]. The word ‘west’ is to identify and differentiate the ships. ‘Wind’ is a lexical repetition that ties the similar word mentioned in [l.4]. This lexicon also collocates with ‘ship’ and ‘running sea’. From the cohesive ties occurred in the second stanza, it can be inferred that ‘the west’ [l.6] is a nominal substitution of ‘a rich country [l.9]. Thus it can be concluded that ‘the west’ is identical with ‘a rich country’. Through the phrases such as turned towards’ [l.6], ‘the running sea’ [l.7], ‘carried to a rich country’, it can be inferred that the journey run well without any significant disturbances from the nature.
Similar to the second stanza, the third stanza also begins from indicating ‘the second ship’ which is, then, identified as a ship that sailed towards east. The phrasal verb ‘turned towards’ is the repetition of the same phrase occurred in line 6. ‘The west’ is chosen here to identify ‘the second ship’ from the direction it takes in the journey. ‘The phrase ‘the quaking sea’ in [l.11] marks the difference between that in [l.7], the second stanza. The use of this phrase creates the initial change concerning the nature surrounding the ship. The obvious difference deals with the nature that starts to be unfamiliar and tends to frightening. The difference is reached through the use of antonymous lexical cohesion of ‘the running (sea)’ and ‘the quaking (sea). It is obvious that the change occurred in the third stanza is initially created by the use of antonymous lexical cohesion.
Such frightening situation is also intensified by the choice of word (phrase) within the clause across lines 12 and 13. ‘And the wind hunted it like a beast/ To anchor in captivity.’ Some dictions indicating antonymous lexical cohesion are ‘running’ vs. ‘hunted’ and the phrases ‘And carried to a rich country’ [l.9] which contradicts the phrase ‘To anchor in captivity’ [l.13]. In one hand, the phrase in line 9 has the meaning that the ship sailed freely without any obstruction to its destination -‘the rich country’ and, on the other hand, the latter means that the ship is obstructed by the frightening wind that hunted it. In other words, there is a sense of imprisoned situation that forces the ship to anchor in captivity. The state of being captive means that the ship cannot go anywhere. Perhaps it never reaches its destination in the east. It is obvious that through the use of antonymous words (phrases), the poet creates two contradicting situation happened to the first and the second ship.
The fourth stanza covers the explanation of the third ship. It begins by pointing out the ship using the ordinal number ‘the third’ [l. 14]. By using the co-hyponym word ‘the north’ under the term ‘direction’ this ship is identified by the direction to where it sailed as also occurred in the previous two stanzas ‘the west’ and ‘the east’. The word ‘drove’ [l.14] has synonymous lexical cohesion with ‘go sailing’ [l.2] and ‘turn towards’ [ll. 6 and 10]. This lexical bond is to indicate that all of the ships tried to sail no matter what happened to them during their trips. The phrase ‘the darkening sea’ can be seen as the synonym of ‘the quaking sea’ [l.11] as they indicate the unfamiliarity of the nature that creates the sense of frightening.
In addition to the frightening situation resulting from the choice of word (phrase) ‘the darkening sea’, in the following lines [ll. 16 and 17] the word choices also support and intensify such bleak situation This indicates by the use of clauses ‘no breath of wind came forth’ / ‘And the decks shone frostily’. These clauses create an extreme gloom. Since ‘No breath of wind came forth’ the ship cannot go anywhere. Thus, it can be stated here that the same situation happened to the third ship as that to the second ship. Even the decks shone reluctantly. Both of the ships are in the bleak natural situation.
The fifth stanza still focuses on ‘the north ship’. Lines 18 and 19 intensify the gloomy situation that already set in the previous line in the fourth stanza. The nature is depicted to become more unwelcoming. Lines 20 and 21 explain that the east and west ships came back happily or unhappily. This clause implicitly states that only two ships came back; they are the west and the east ships. Through this clause, it can be inferred that the north ship had not come back or perhaps it will never come back. In addition, the adverbial words happily and unhappily indicate the uncertainty surrounding all the ships even though the poet previously stated that the west ship sailed to a rich country.
Finally the discussion comes to the last stanza (the sixth stanza). Line 23 indicates that the third ship (the north ship) went wide and far instead of going back to the place it departed. The bleak situation is strengthened by the use of phrase ‘into an unforgiving sea’ [l.23]. The word star usually has positive connotation like optimistic, livelihood, cheerful, and other positive senses. However, as this line is juxtaposed line by line, it is doubtful to say that it has a positive sense as indicated earlier. Because it is placed in a very close position with the phrase ‘into an unforgiving sea’ indicating a bleak situation, so the phrase ‘Under a fire-spilling star’ seems to mean something destructive as the attribute of fire that can burn down anything. The poem ends with the emphasis of the poet that the reason why the north ship was rigged is because it sailed for a long journey.
Interpretation
Under this heading, the interpretation of the poem will be made based on what have been done earlier in the sub-heading foregrounding and cohesive links throughout the poem. The poet smartly composed his poem through the depiction of the three ships journey and nature surrounding them. The tone in the poem changes from neutral into gloomy, bleak, or even hopeless.
The easiest thing that can be noticed in the poem is that the existence of the three ships namely the west, east, and north ships. Among the three ships, it is the north ship that the poet mostly concerns on. It occupies a half of the whole poem (3 among 6 stanzas). Another medium that the poet used in the poem is nature especially that of sea, sky, wind, and star. This is an important medium as we know that one of the characteristics of the nature is changing or dynamic. This medium helps him to create the mood in the poem from neutral (or even cheerful) to bleak and gloomy or from optimistic to pessimistic.
The north ship, according to the poet, is very important focus as it is also indicated and highlighted in the title. Besides attracting the reader’s attention, the title also gives sign or direction to where the content will be directed. As stated earlier that the most noticeable medium here is the use of the word ‘ships’. This medium is a vehicle used by the poet to transport his idea and meaning.
A ship is generally known as a means of water transportation. It can transport human and load from one place to another. The usual place to find ship is in the sea. It can be said that ship and sea are two inseparable things. In other words, a ship has to go through the sea. As pointed out in the poem that there are three ships sailed to three different directions namely west, east and north. Each ship underwent different experiences as well. Based on this, it can be interpreted that there are three points delineated by the poet. They are possibly three types of lives that humans live. The closeness between ship and sea enable us to interpret “sea’ as the life that humans must go through.
The first ship that sailed west is depicted as a ship full of wealthy. This can be interpreted as a person having ideal to be a person with overwhelming wealth. This person’s life goal is richness. At the beginning the poet agrees that the life always runs well and cheerfully as depicted in the second stanza that the ship is running well to its destination (a rich country) without any natural disturbance.
The second ship sailed to the east, the opposite of west. Based on this, it can be interpreted that the east ship undergoes a contradicting condition. Then, this ship perhaps is a person undergoes his life in poverty. The nature (sea) surrounding the second ship is a kind of quaking that hunted it like a beast. This condition makes it anchor in captivity. It is the poverty that is imprisoned this person in his life.
However, later in the fifth stanza the poet questions his belief if wealth always makes people happy. His doubt is reflected in the clause ‘East and west the ship came back/ Happily or unhappily’. This means that the person undergoes these two types of life possibly experience his life happily or unhappily. In other word the richness of the poverty are not the causes that make people happy or unhappy.
The last is the north ship. It is the main focus of the poet as it is used as the title of the poem. This ship represents the poet himself as he does not belong to the other two ships. He undergoes his own life. The life he undergoes is not such a good life as depicted from the nature surrounding the ship is also unwelcoming (i.e. darkening sea, no breath of wind, the proud unfruitful sea, unforgiving sea, fire spilling star). This kind of life is experienced by the poet in his first career as a poet. The condition is unfruitful because he was not taken into account as a poet. Other famous poet (and also the society) looked at him coldly because he shines frostily instead of brightly He feels that he is always under the shadow of a fire-spilling star (a famous poet) that is ready to burn him down to the bottom of the sea and will never reach his destination (a poet). The bottom of life means he becomes nothing. To conclude, it can be said that this poem is the reflection of the poet’s anxiety at the beginning of his career.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The previous discussion showed how foregrounding and cohesive devices are realized in the texts of the poem ‘The North Ship’. The line-by-line identification of foregrounding applied by a poet gives a clear understanding of the way he attracts the researcher’s attention and feel as much as possible effects. The foregrounding applied in the poem among others is the use of alliteration. This creates the sense as if the reader hears the sound of the blowing wind. Another foregrounding aspect is the pattern of rhyme, i.e. abab, cbcb, dbdb, ebeb, fbfb, and gbgb, through the whole poem. The number of syllables in each line is also foregrounded by deviating from the regularity to irregularity. This can create the image of the situation delineated in the poem.
In addition, the tracking of cohesive devices in the poem gives a clear illustration on how they work together to create a coherent text. After identifying the cohesive devices, the ties among them can be traced. The realization of cohesive devices shows that every single cohesive device exists as the part of building block in creating the whole meaning of the texts (poems). Likewise, no single cohesive device realized in the texts exists independently. For instance, referential cohesion is used to refer to a person or thing appears previously. Sometimes it refers to something (someone) outside the texts (for exophoric references), for example, the words ‘the north ship’ [l.1], ‘the third ship’ [l.14], and ‘it’ [l.25].
Other types of cohesive devices that appear in the poem are lexical cohesion (naming, hyponyms, collocation, repetitions, and synonym), conjunction, and substitution. All types of lexical cohesion in ‘The North Ship’ appear 47 times
Concluding Remark
This research was conducted as one of the efforts to understand poem. Foregrounding applied in the poem can help the researcher to feel its effects and extended his understanding Likewise the cohesive devices applied in poem also can assist the reader in realizing the cohesive bonds among them. They will find out that all the cohesive devices are tied together in constructing the unity and the whole meaning of a text. Certainly, it is not the only attempt to understand a text. There are still many attempts that the reader may conduct to explore deeper into a text (especially poem). As it is commonly known that a poem sometimes is written in usual way of writing. This is also one aspect that the readers should consider if they want to go deeper into the meaning exploration. Everything written down in the poem is purposeful.
This is also an attempt to show how foregrounding intentionally used by a writer to create a certain effect. In addition, the study on cohesive devices shows how cohesive devices work together in the poem. In the field of second language (l.2) learning, this attempt might also give some contribution to help the students understand poem because most students consider poem is difficult to understand.
Suggestion for Further Research
As stated above, this research is not the only attempt that can be done to understand the meaning of a text. Considering that poem is one of the text genres used to express meaning it is can be said that it also has an inseparable relation to the language in use. For further research, it is worth conducting research on the other linguistic aspect such sociolinguistic aspect within poems. It will help the readers to go deeper into the meaning of poems.
REFERENCES
Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar: Second Edition. London, New York, Sydney, Auckland: Edward Arnold
Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. England: Longman Group Limited
Johnstone, Barbara. 2002. Discourse Analysis. Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Publisher. Inc.
Niederlander, 2004. How to analyze Poetry. [available online at] http://www.stlcc.cc.mo.us/fp/writingc/pdfs/poemhowto.pdf) [retrieved on] 2 July 2003
Short, Mick. 1996. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. Malaysia: Longman
Short, Mick. On-line Course on Stylistics. [Available online at] http://www.lancaster.ac.edu/fass/projects/stylistics.htm [Retrieved on] 12 February 2006
Talib, Ismail. Literary Stylistics: Lecture Notes No. 1 [available online at:] http:// courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/lsl01.html] retrieved on 2 January 2006
APPENDIX
The Text of ‘The North Ship’
| 1 | 'The North Ship' |
| 5 | I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. |
| | The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich country. |
| 10 | The second ship turned towards the east, Over the sea, the quaking sea, And the wind hunted it like a beast To anchor in captivity. |
| 15 | The third ship drove towards the north, Over the sea, the darkening sea, But no breath of wind came forth, And the decks shone frostily. |
| 20 | The northern sky rose high and black Over the proud unfruitful sea, East and west the ships came back Happily or unhappily: |
| 25 | But the third went wide and far Into an unforgiving sea Under a fire-spilling star, And it was rigged for a long journey. |
| | Philip Larkin |
