The Merciful God In Dowden’s Poem

Henriono Nugroho

Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Jember

Jalan Kalimantan 37 Jember 68121

h-nugroho@hotmail.com

Abstract

This article concerns with a stylistic analysis on a poem in terms of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Verbal Art Semiotics. The writing uses library research, qualitative data, documentary study, descriptive method and intrinsic-objective approach. The semantic analysis results in both automatized and foregrounded meanings. Then the automatized meaning produces lexical cohesion and in turn, it produces subject matter. Meanwhile, the foregrounded meaning produces the literary meaning and in turn, it creates theme. Finally, the analysis indicates that the subject matter is about searching for happiness, the literary meaning is about divine blessings, and the theme is about the Merciful God.