pathetic fallacy

noun

1. the endowment of nature, inanimate objects, etc., with human traits and feelings, as in the smiling skies; the angry sea.

pathetic fallacy

noun

1. (in literature) the presentation of inanimate objects in nature as possessing human feelings

Word History and Origins

Origin of pathetic fallacy¹

Coined by John Ruskin in Modern Painters Vol. III, Part IV (1856)

Example Sentences

And more than anything, they demolish the pathetic fallacy—that the world weeps as we do.

From The Daily Beast

He has not 'the pathetic fallacy'; but he approaches it very nearly at times.

From Project Gutenberg

Compare, for this "pathetic fallacy" in painting, Titian's "Noli me tangere" (No. 270).

From Project Gutenberg

The vast "pathetic fallacy" makes religion of the whole of life.

From Project Gutenberg

It is Browning's contradiction of any one who thinks that the pathetic fallacy exists in his poetry.

From Project Gutenberg

To make 'Nature' really interesting you must have a touch of Wordsworthian pantheism and of Shelley's 'pathetic fallacy.'

From Project Gutenberg