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Definition and Examples of Pathetic fallacy – Literary Terms
Pathetic fallacy:
A term coined by John
Ruskin to criticize the use of PERSONIFICATION, in which human emotions are
attributed to nature. Although many poets use this device, Ruskin found it a
form of false emotionalism, as he made clear in the third volume of Modern
Painters:
They rowed her in across
the rolling foam-
The cruel, crawling foam.
The foam is not cruel,
neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these
characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by
grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a
falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally
characterize as the "pathetic fallacy."
See also:
PERSONIFICATION.
Tags: pathetic fallacy definition, pathetic fallacy examples, pathetic fallacy vs personification, pathetic fallacy examples, what is pathetic fallacy
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