Green Romanticism:: A Problematic Portrayal of Love and Nature in Damomo’s Kolam through Ecocriticism Standpoint

Andreas Akun

doi:10.21512/lc.v18i2.12001

Authors

Andreas Akun Bina Nusantara University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v18i2.12001

Keywords:

green romanticism, problematic portrayal, love, nature, ecocriticism

Abstract

Is love natural or cultural? Can love be perfect in itself, or does it depend much on something outside itself? The research attempted to analyze the theme of interdependence, balance, and uneasiness in the relationship between a love that seemed more dominant and the nature that was often considered as merely the background of a story in “Kolam,” a collection of poems by Sapardi Djoko Damono. The goal of the research was to reveal the symbolic interdependence between nature and love where the very nature-love played a role as the subject per se, and these nature-oriented poems from Damono (though not always explicit) comprised the texts constructed culturally through literary study in ecocriticism perspective. Textual analysis was conducted through the works to expose the author’s concerns, including romance, nature, and worries. Damono’s poems had been proven to reveal the symbolic interdependence of romance and nature. The researcher analyzed 20 poems from Damono. The research result shows that through eco-sensitive reading—“an earth-centred approach to literary studies”— by positioning nature not only as the background, human’s love story cannot in any way escape from its dependence on surrounding nature. Human romanticism can only be perfect when it is signified in its symbolic and, at the same time, problematic relationship with nature. As a whole, the poem collection has proven to equalize nature and culture, of love and nature as the subject per se of the poet’s concern.

Dimensions

Plum Analytics

Author Biography

Andreas Akun, Bina Nusantara University

English Department

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