1 A STYLISTIC STUDY OF LANGUAGE DEVIATION IN THOMAS HARDY’S THE RUINED MAID By: Sukasih Ratna Widayanti* *dosen Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Unversitas Widya Dharma Klaten ABSTRACT This study is aimed to describe the language deviation in a poem entitled The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy. In writing a poem, every poet has a poetic license to gain the beautiful poem even it creates language deviation. The poetic license may be ignoring the ordinary rule in making a word, phrase, or even sentence. The author of this poem, Thomas Hardy, is a good poet in performing his ideas through his poem. He intended to make his poem, The Ruined Maid, become unique and eye-catching poem. In Thomas Hardy’s The Ruined Maid, it can be concluded that there are five language deviations which is occurred. They are lexical deviation, grammatical deviation, graphological deviation, semantic deviation, and historical deviation. The language deviations are used to make a beautiful poem. Keywords: stylistic, language deviation INTRODUCTION Literary works cannot be separated from language. It becomes the most important things in performing the works, especially in written form. Literary work uses language as a tool in delivering ideas, messages, and information. Literary work is not only showing the product of the works, but it is also viewing the author’s ideas and feeling through the works. The author’s ideas illustrate by language, especially by the word choices in creating the works. What the author wants to deliver and what the reader interprets are restricted in language. Literary works with everything they communicate are controlled by language of the author. Poem as one of literary works has a unique characteristic in using its language. It is showed in the word choices and style of the author. As the other artists, a poet has a certain style to express his feeling idea, and desire to please his or her readers. Hornby (1995) states that style as the manner of doing,