The Intertextuality of Animal Metaphors in Rendra’s Poems and the Bible

Abstract

One of the interesting things about poems is that they are rich in metaphors. In addition to beautifying expressions in literary works, metaphors have a function to enhance imagination. Rendra was known as a poet who was good at building metaphors in his poems. The purpose of this paper was to describe the influence of biblical metaphors on Rendra's poetry works, especially animal metaphors. The approach used in this study was an intertextuality approach in the perspective of Gerald Genette and Michael Riffaterre. The results of the analysis showed that Rendra's poems in the romantic period, namely the poems collected in the books Ballada Orang-Orang Tercinta and Blues untuk Bonnie, have a tendency to be influenced by animal metaphors from the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. In Indonesian culture, there was almost no comparison of the female with the likes of a deer or reindeer, for example. Meanwhile, the words deer and reindeer occur frequently in the Bible, some of which have the meaning of the female body.