AN ANALYSIS OF THE SYMBOLS OF LOVE, LIFE, AND DEATH IN KAHLIL GIBRAN'S POEMS

: Kahlil Gibran is a Lebanese-American artist, writer, and poet. He is no stranger to literary lovers and connoisseurs. His phenomenal works made Kahlil Gibran famous. His life experience also adds its unique value to his works. The various meanings hidden behind each of his works deserve further analysis. Some of them are typical poems from Kahlil Gibran. He has his way of expressing the true meaning of life through his poems. Therefore, this study will show the symbolic meaning of these poems by using the hermeneutical analysis method from Paul Ricoeur. This method explains the meaning of the symbol in real life. A symbol is a form that gives meaning to every word or sentence contained in a literary work. The result of this analysis is the discovery of various kinds of symbols contained in the poems by Kahlil Gibran, including symbols of love, life, and death. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that love, life, and death are some of the symbols found in Kahlil Gibran's poems.


A. Introduction
Literature is a creative work that comes from the human imagination and has its aesthetic value. According to Ahmad Badrun (1983: 16), literature is an artistic activity that uses language and other symbols as a tool to produce something imaginative. Literature becomes an expression of life through symbols. It's not just writing that just happens.
However, the meaning and message contained in it make literature unique. In essence, literature is a mirror of life that is poured into the form of a work.
Literature itself is created from human thoughts and feelings. At first, an author experiences and observes the reality of life in society to reflect it in the form of a literary work. The connecting tool between reality and literary works is the language that can be enjoyed by the readers. Literary works have various types and forms. One of them is poetry.
Poetry is built through a process of intensification, the choice of words in harmony with each stanza of the poem. Esten said that if you want to master a poem properly and correctly, it takes some principles and instructions that must be adhered to. These principles and instructions encourage the process of understanding a poem (Esten, 2011: 32). Poetry with all its processes is closely related to the experience of the author.
As the works of poetry written by Kahlil Gibran. His work is arranged very stunningly with beautiful language but contains a deep meaning, so it requires understanding the symbols so that the reader can understand what is the meaning contained in it. Therefore, the writer uses the hermeneutical analysis method from Paul Ricoeur to see the poetry works written by Kahlil Gibran in more depth. This method will explain the meaning of the symbols of this poem and put an explanation of the meaning of these symbols in real life.

B. Discussion
Hermeneutics is a human phenomenon that is obtained from an indication of using symbols or symbols to distinguish humans from animals, which focuses on the field of language. Hermeneutics which is also a theory is a tool in interpreting or defining a literary work. Hermeneutics can be interpreted universally as a theory or philosophy related to the interpretation or explanation of meaning. The word hermeneutics comes from the Greek hermeneuinen which means a verb with the meaning of interpreting, translating, or interpreting.
This hermeneutic theory was discovered by Paul Ricoeur, who is considered as someone who has arbitrated a fierce dispute between the methodological hermeneutic tradition and the philosophical tradition. Paul Ricouer here starts from the same starting point as the methodological hermeneutic tradition which states that hermeneutics is a method for explaining the objective meaning of a text that has a certain time and distance from the reader.
According to Paul Ricoeur, symbols and metaphors are the two main elements that are the subject of interpretation or translation of the meaning in hermeneutics. Paul Ricoeur pays more attention to his hermeneutic discourses on these two main elements. Paul Ricoeur argues that metaphor is a form of expression or sentence whose words are used metaphorically. This shows that Paul Ricouer takes the case of metaphor from word semantics to sentence semantics, which are connected to statement metaphors. The statement-metaphor analysis is carried out by discourse analysis. Therefore, the interpretation theory of Paul Ricoeur recognizes the classical metaphor theory based on the word metaphor. According to Paul Ricouer, metaphor is the tension between two meanings in a sentence with the use of linguistic rules. Then, the metaphorical statement emerges as a decrease in the tension through semantic creativity that is adapted to the overall sentence.
Therefore, Paul Ricoeur asserts that metaphor is an innovation or a new form of semantics that is part of the predicative arrangement (new conformity) and lexical order (paradigmatic deviation). The meaning of the metaphor will be achieved with a few propositions (sentences) as the smallest factor of discourse, as well as language that contains meaning when used in sentences. Likewise, poetry will reach its existence after being appreciated through the construction of propositions and discourses. Paul Ricoeur interprets a sign or symbol as a text that is linguistically determined in the form of an interpretation of the expression of life. This is because language is a part of human life. Moreover, the form of art that is displayed visually as a whole is also interpreted using language.
Paul Ricoeur argues that humans are language and the main condition for human experience is language itself. Therefore, hermeneutics is the latest method that is in line with language and interpreters whose task is to describe the chain of life as a whole and its history in latent language. Authors who depart from Latin rhetoric or neo-Platonic traditions who turn symbols into analogies, differ from Paul Ricoeur who defines symbols more broadly. Then, Paul Ricoeur defines a symbol as a signification structure whose contents contain a direct, indirect, main, literary meaning that points to, functions as an additional, secondary, and figurative which can be understood through the former. Symbols are not the same as metaphors. So the symbol is more complex and contains certain values in it. According to Paul Ricoeur, there are two dimensions in symbols, namely the dimensions that are bound to the linguistic rules and the dimensions that are not bound to the linguistic rules. First, symbols can be analyzed through semantic studies. Then secondly, symbols tend to be assimilative which comes from the free experience of various methods for the study of the meaning.
Symbols can be analyzed from various perspectives, such as the history of psychoanalysis, comparative religion, mysticism, and others.
Symbolism is a literary device that refers to the use of symbols in a literary work. A symbol is something that represents or replaces something else. In literature, symbols can be words, objects, characters, actions, or concepts that embody and evoke various other additional meanings.
Dillistone provides an interesting thought on symbols. Symbol theory is explained at length by combining several views of experts from various fields as a research reference source so that it influences his view of symbols. Symbols are very interesting because they affect humans in expressing and reflecting on their lives, in horizontal and vertical aspects, or related to their surrounding life or with transcendence or God so that human existence can be explained using symbols.
According to Dillistone, who based his thoughts on Erwin Goodenough, a symbol is an object or pattern for whatever reason, reacts to humans, affects humans, and passes through mere assumptions about what is provided with the given form. Symbols become a link in human exploration to always ask and try to find an answer to unite the two realities to find new symbol meanings as well as the development of previous meanings (Dillistone et al., 1903).
Khalil Gibran is a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the city of Bsharri, Lebanon, he migrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began a literary career. In the Arab world, Gibran is considered a literary and political rebel, his romanticist style at the heart of the renaissance in modern Arabic literature, particularly prose poetry. In Lebanon, he was still revered as a literary hero. In other countries, Gibran Symbols of love, life, and death are some of the meanings that often appear in the poems by Kahlil Gibran. According to Kahlil Gibran, love is the only freedom in the world because it evokes the spirit of human laws and natural phenomena cannot change its direction.
Love is like a beautiful bird, asking to be caught but refusing to be hurt. Besides love, the symbol of life is often interpreted by Kahlil Gibran as an afterthought for humans. He thought that living things were just dust particles floating around in an eternal and infinite void. The human self is only to surrender and obey. If humans are in love, their love does not come from them, nor does it belong to them. If humans are happy, their happiness is not in humans, but in life itself. Furthermore, there is a symbol of death in the view of Kahlil Gibran.
According to him, death is the end of the children of the earth. But for the soul, death is a beginning, a triumph over life.

Love is the deadliest poison It is like the hiss of the most venomous snake that suffers wounds in hell,
Hovering and spinning through the sky.
Then it fell covered with dew And drunk by thirsty souls. And they were intoxicated for a moment, Sleep for a year and die forever.

(Love Poison by Kahlil Gibran)
Based on one of the poems by Kahlil Gibran above, when love is reciprocated by a poison it becomes wound and approaches death. Here love becomes something that is not good and deadly. It is like the hiss of a venomous snake that is in hell so that anyone who falls too deep into love then they will get lost, drunk, or forget themselves to death slowly.

Love is beauty that comes straight from heaven Love lights up our eyes and shows everything about it
Like the gods who always watch it Love is like a thick fog that covers the soul And hides the image of him being Love makes him able to see the shadow of his lust Roaming among the rocks Deaf to the voices of his pain That echoes in the valleys (Love by Kahlil Gibran) The poem entitled Love above shows that the symbol of love is a beauty that came down from heaven. Love shows humans everything like the gods who also witnessed it.
However, the symbol of love can also envelop and cover the human soul to hide the image of himself. Love can make people forget themselves and then there is only lust until they are deaf to the voices of truth.

If you regret passing through the years of freedom far from confinement, So I remember and call it a sad silence. Love opens the eyes of the heart and illuminates them with knowledge.
Silence has silky hands and softness, But his strong fingers grip the heart And loneliness makes him sick.

Silence is a lonely friend Like a friend of spiritual joy It is like a stemless white lily Which makes it vibrate in the wind, Open in the day and close in the dark (Memories and silence by Kahlil Gibran)
The poem entitled Memories and Silence by Kahlil Gibran shows the symbol of love as something that opens the eyes of the heart and illuminates it with knowledge. Unlike in previous poems which consider love to be deadly, here Gibran also shows the goodness of love. In addition, Gibran also believes that humans will see the greatness of God through love.
It will make life peaceful. Then humans can find God through that peace. Love is a great power to achieve its goals.

When love takes you, follow it even though the road is steep
When he flaps his wings, then surrender yourself to him Even if the sword is inserted to injure you. When he speaks in his voice that will destroy you, So keep trusting him. Even if love crowns you, it will also sacrifice. He will also break your branches even though he climbs high on your branches, And wipe your trembling branches in the dim light of the sun, He also descends to your roots and shakes from the bowels of the earth.
(Love by kahlil Gibran) Furthermore, the symbol of love is shown by Kahlil Gibran in the poem above, according to Gibran Love must be followed even though the path is steep to the point of injuring and destroying humans. Here the good and bad side of love is shown in the poem above. Love can make people happy but it can also destroy them. In addition, love will also make people understand the secrets of their hearts so that they become a piece of the heart of life. But if the man is afraid of love, then they are better off from love.
In addition to the symbol of love, the symbol of life is also one of the symbols contained in the poems by Kahlil Gibran. He has been renowned for his work that takes life with deep meaning. His unique delivery of words through the poems is a distinctive feature of his own.

Like a house, our body is a temple to the soul; That is, the abode of the spirit that makes it alive, And life is nothing but the soul residing in the body itself.
Of course, we have to maintain the sanctity and sturdiness of the Temple, According to the divine steadfastness that resides in the temple of our soul.
(Temple for the soul by Kahlil Gibran) According to Gibran, life is the soul in the human body. He likens it to a temple in which there is a spirit that gives life. This life must also be maintained following the provisions of God. Kahlil Gibran has a perspective that the way to find God is that humans must see how God's creations are. In God's creation will be found the power of God. After contemplation of nature, the results will lead to the greatness of God.  Gibran) In the poem above, the symbol of death becomes something cruel and painful in human solitude at night. However, from that painful loneliness like death, there will be another great day. It is only a matter of time between loneliness, death, and the joys of life.

You are whispered that life is darkness And with great fear You spread what has been said to you full of doubt I proclaim to you that life is darkness if it is not covered by the will And all will be blind if it is not covered with knowledge And all kinds of knowledge will be empty if not accompanied by work And work is nothing but emptiness unless accompanied by love
The issue of the nature of death is an ontological field in the world of philosophy.
Death is a stage in the human journey as a process of detachment from the world. The Prophet Muhammad once said that in fact, the world is a corner or a shackle for those who believe in Allah swt. The world is analogous to the life of one's body and faith is the spirit that occupies it. This means that the essence of death is life itself. Death is a stage to a much more essential next life. This life is the eternal afterlife.
The real problem of death is not the spirit, but the matter of matter. This is because the spirit is what makes matter alive. Without the spirit, all things material in the form of death.
Sheikh Siti Jenar said that the world is the realm of death. The world is a grave realm, while the body is likened to an iron bar that holds a soul to stay in the world and feels various difficulties in living in this world, such as hunger, thirst, and sadness. Life on earth is just a preparation for real life. If not ready, then the soul will be trapped again into the realm of death that is a carrion or corpse. Real-life is a life without the body because the body often leads to misguidance. The body is a cage for the self and the soul that causes humans to live with various sufferings (Chodjim, 2002: 22-24).

C. Conclusion
Poetry with all its processes is closely related to the experience of the author. The symbols of love, life, and death are symbols found in the poems by Kahlil Gibran. According to Gibran, love is the only freedom in the world because love evokes the spirit of human laws and natural phenomena cannot change their direction. Love is like a beautiful bird, asking to be caught but refusing to be hurt. Besides love, the symbol of life is often interpreted by Kahlil Gibran as an afterthought for humans. He thought that living things were just dust particles floating around in an eternal and infinite void. The human self is only to surrender and obey. If humans are in love, their love does not come from them, nor does it belong to them. If humans are happy, their happiness is not in humans, but in life itself. Furthermore, there is a symbol of death in the view of Kahlil Gibran. According to him, death is the end of the children of the earth. But for the soul, death is a beginning, a triumph over life.