Sapardi Djoko Damono appeared on the Google homepage today with a special doodle design.. The Google Doodle was made to celebrate the 83rd Birthday of Sapardi Djoko Damono, the poet who has an important role in the world of Indonesian literature. If you access the Google.com and Google.co.id URLs, you will see an illustration of Sapardi standing in the middle of the rain while carrying a book and an umbrella. The illustration depicts one of the famous poetry collections made by him, Hujan Bulan Juni (1994).
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Sapardi Djoko Damono or SDD was born in Surakarta on March 20, 1940. Today, Monday, March 20, 2023 marks the 83rd anniversary of Sapardi Djoko Damono. He passed away on July 19, 2020 at the age of 80.Â
Sapardi Djoko Damono is Indonesian poet, lecturer, literary observer, literature critic and literature expert. SSD was the first son of the couple Sadyoko and Saparian. After graduating from high school, he studied at the Department of English Literature, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. He once studied humanities at the University of Hawaii, the US (1970-1971).
In 1980, he earned his doctorate in literature with a dissertation entitled Novel Jawa Tahun 1950-an: Telaah Fungsi, Isi, dan Struktur. In 1995, he was confirmed as a professor at the Faculty of Letters, Universitas Indonesia.Â
Sapardi Djoko Damono has an important role in Indonesian literature. In Pamusuk Eneste’s Ikhtisar Kesusastraan Indonesia Modern (1988), Sapardi is in the group of poets from the 1970s generation. In A Teeuw’s Sastra Indonesia Modern II (1989), Sapardi is described as a young scholar who started writing around 1960. There is a clear development in Sapardi’s poetry, especially in terms of the formal arrangement of his poems. He is considered as an original and creative poet.
Sapardi Djoko Damono’s poetry is widely admired because it has many similarities to those in Western poetry called symbolism since the late 19th century. SSD is also famous as one of Indonesia’s romantic poets. Many of his romantic poems could to touch people’s hearts. One of the best known poems is “Aku Ingin”, a 1989 poem inside a collection of poems entitled “Hujan di Bulan Juni”.
