thumb|upright|270px|[[John Ruskin at Glenfinlas, Scotland (1853–54), by John Everett Millais]]

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. The English cultural critic John Ruskin coined the term in the third volume of his work Modern Painters (1856).

History of the phrase

Ruskin coined the term pathetic fallacy to criticize the sentimentality that was common to the poetry of the late 18th century, especially among poets like Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. Wordsworth supported this use of personification based on emotion by claiming that "objects ... derive their influence not from properties inherent in them ... but from such as are bestowed upon them by the minds of those who are conversant with or affected by these objects." However Tennyson, in his own poetry, began to refine and diminish such expressions, and introduced an emphasis on what might be called a more scientific comparison of objects in terms of sense perception. The old order was beginning to be replaced by the new just as Ruskin addressed the matter; after Ruskin the use of the pathetic fallacy began to disappear. As a critic, Ruskin proved influential and is credited with having helped to refine poetic expression.

The meaning of the term has changed significantly from the idea Ruskin had in mind. Ruskin's original definition is "emotional falseness", or the falseness that occurs to one's perceptions when influenced by violent or heightened emotion. For example, when a person is unhinged by grief, the clouds might seem darker than they are, or perhaps mournful or uncaring.

The particular definition that Ruskin used for the word fallacy has since become obsolete. The word "fallacy" in modern usage refers primarily to an example of flawed reasoning, but for Ruskin and writers of the 19th century and earlier, fallacy was used to mean simply a "falseness". Similarly, the word "pathetic" simply meant for Ruskin "emotional" or "pertaining to emotion."

Ruskin states: "so long as we see that the feeling is true, we pardon, or are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy."

The following, a stanza from the poem "Maud" (1855) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, demonstrates what John Ruskin, in Modern Painters, said was an "exquisite" instance of the use of the pathetic fallacy:

See also

  • Animism
  • Anthropocentrism
  • Anthropomorphism
  • Figure of speech
  • Hypallage
  • List of narrative techniques
  • Morgan's Canon
  • Personification

References

Further reading

  • Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed., Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. .
  • Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth (eds.). The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. .
  • Ruskin, J., "Of the Pathetic Fallacy", Modern Painters Vol. III (1856).