Application of Rhetorical Relations in the Analysis of Two English Romantic Sonnets

Abbas Ghubin Al-Zubaidy, Baidaa

doi:10.21608/aafu.2023.287480

Application of Rhetorical Relations in the Analysis of Two English Romantic Sonnets

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Baidaa Abbas Ghubin Al-Zubaidy

Dept. of English/College of Education / Ibn-Rushd / University of Baghdad

10.21608/aafu.2023.287480

Abstract

This paper investigates the application of the theory of rhetorical relations in structuring two English Romantic sonnets: Coleridge’s: “To the River Otter”, and Keats’s “To Ailsa Rock” both dealing with elements of nature – by using Crombie’s model (1985) in describing their logical and imaginative thematic progression. The paper also investigates the quantitative relevance of the densities of rhetorical relations and the sonnets’ thematic structure. Data analysis has shown that rhetorical relations are not mutually exclusive, but can be superimposed upon each other; thus, contributing to the sonnets’ high semantic load and coherence. Also, the ordering of rhetorical relations’ members is flexible in that one member can precede or come after the other, allowing either member-anticipation or member-retrospection. Moreover, the very high densities of the rhetorical relations of setting/conduct and matching in the data is indicative of their centrality to the coherence of Romantic poetic diction. In contrast, the absence of the rhetorical relations of truth-validity and alternation in the data is suggestive of their being not particularly coterminous with such a poetic diction.

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