WORD CHOICE AS A BRUSH: AN ANALYSIS OF DICTION IN JOHN ASHBERY'S POEM THE PAINTER

Abstract

John Ashbery's poem The Painter offers an aesthetic complexity that depicts the relationship between art, artists, and readers' interpretation. This article analyses the diction in the poem by highlighting the role of word choice as the primary tool that Ashbery uses to convey meaning and emotion. This analysis uses a stylistic approach to identify diction patterns, implicit meanings, and their impact on the creation of images and metaphors in poetry. The results of this study show that Ashbery uses ambivalent, abstract, and imaginative diction to describe the painter's creative process as an allegory of human existential struggle. Careful word choice creates layers of interpretation, allowing readers to understand the complex relationship between art, subjectivity, and reality. Thus, this study confirms that the diction in The Painter is not only a medium of expression, but also a brush that paints the layered meanings in the poem.