The attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature.
‘Of late he had a deeper understanding of pathetic fallacy as Ruskin had called it.’
‘No pathetic fallacy here, nature remains impervious to human crises.’
‘This is not quite what Ruskin called the pathetic fallacy, that conviction of fellow-feeling between men and nature; it's more like the demonic fallacy.’
‘It is the pathetic fallacy made literal - Winston's thoughts really do appear in the world, are indistinguishable from it.’
‘The room had darkened, as if obeying the laws of pathetic fallacy.’
‘I question this, taking it to be nothing more than idle pathetic fallacy.’
‘Wordsworth in particular used the pathetic fallacy with great seriousness, not as a decorative device, but its use declined after Ruskin's formulation.’
‘Such intelligence prevents any recourse to the pathetic fallacy.’
‘Literary critics call it the pathetic fallacy: just as there's no such thing as a lonely mountain, there can be no such thing as a ‘selfish gene’.’
‘Of course, thinking that the daffodils were actually extending a welcome to me is a pathetic fallacy.’
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