Conceptual Metaphor Analysis in the Dreams, Spelled in Poetry

Abstract

This study aims to identify the widely used metaphors and analyze the meanings that construct the reality of 'life' in the literary work entitled Dreams, Spelled in Poetry (2021) by Helena Natasha. Poetry data taken is a collection of poems with the theme 'The Call.' The method used by the researcher is descriptive qualitative and combines two theories; the first is to identify the types of metaphors used by the poet in the poem with the theme 'The Call,' the researcher uses the theory of Lakoff and Johnson (2003) and to analyze the conceptual metaphors that shape reality. The 'life' reflected in the researcher's poetry uses the theory of Kovecses (2007). Correspondence elaboration or concept mapping is used to conceptualize the relationship between the source domain and the target domain to construct the reality of 'life.' This study tries to conduct a cognitive semantic study of the concept of life in Helena Natasha's poetry from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The analysis result shows that the type of metaphor used by Helena Natasha in the poem with the theme The Call is dominated by ontology metaphors with fifteen data. Furthermore, the author managed to find two concepts contained in the poem with the theme ‘The Call’ that succeeded in shaping the reality of 'life,' namely, AMBITION IS FIRE/LIGHT, and LIFE IS A JOURNEY.The researcher suggests that future research expand the concept formed in a poem other than the concept of 'life' by Chairil Anwar.