Lecture 2.3.4 – Introducing Pathetic Fallacy
Lecture Overview
Nature Poetry and the notion of Pathetic Fallacy
The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attribution of human emotion and conduct to things found in nature that are not human. It is a kind of personification that occurs in poetic descriptions, when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent.
Pathetic Fallacy consists of giving animals and inanimate objects human feelings. “I wandered lonely as a cloud" (the narrator feels lonely, but the line suggests the cloud feels lonely as well)
Personification is very different. It’s just giving any type of human qualities to animals or inanimate objects.”The birds sang like a choir”
The term "pathetic fallacy" was coined by a British writer named John Ruskin, who defined it as "emotional falseness." Ruskin originally used the term to criticize what he saw as the sentimental attitude of 18th century Romantic poets toward nature. In reacting to the growth of Science during the enlightenment the Romantic poets overreacted and went overboard in their worship of Nature Themes