Rhetorical Analysis Of Sonnet 12

In a world that is constantly being altered, words are the only entity that remains constant; the only thing that does not give into change. Words are powerful things that gift an individual with the ability to express his or her thoughts on paper—to make their thoughts eternal. However, it is not enough to just put words on a piece of paper. More thought, time, and energy must be put into a piece to make it powerful—to make the piece everlasting. When words are no longer just mere words but are rather structured in a way that makes them form coherent and powerful thoughts, it makes them mean something. This can be seen through poetry. One of the most famous writers of all time, William Shakespeare, does not just merely use words; rather, he masterfully uses rhetorical …show more content…
Two of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sonnet 12 and Sonnet 15, demonstrate his ability to skillfully create powerful creations that will last a lifetime through his use of sound, diction, and literary devices.
In sonnet 12, Shakespeare dexterously uses various rhetorical techniques in order to make his poetry more powerful than the average poem. The first quatrain starts off with the use of the word “I.” This makes the sonnet particularly personal to Shakespeare as he is the speaker of the poem rather than some other ambiguous individual. This is seen in the first line of sonnet 12: “When I do count the clock that tells the time” (1). The opening line of this sonnet exemplifies the idea that time is of the essence; time is a major theme being presented in the poem. When Shakespeare “counts the clock,” it presents the idea that time is a fixed and steady concept that can easily be counted despite the fact he is powerless to time.

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