Pathetic Fallacy - is this a "thing"

[marmia1234]

My sons English report came home ( disclaimers: not in UK and I have a degree in English Literature)
In one section of the test they had to match a quote to its corresponding technique. For example - simile, imagery, metaphor, personification etc. One of those techniques was "pathetic fallacy" . I am flummoxed. Is this a normal thing I just missed somehow? Once he had a stab at which one was the "pathetic fallacy he was stuffed and only got 4 right out of 7 as was a bit discombobulated. Is this a common term in the UK or US
I have googled and it appears to be a version of personification.
Why is it pathetic?
Trying to add poll but seem to be unable.
YABU - everybody knows the term "Pathetic fallacy"
YANBU - WTF nobody has heard of that

The word "pathetic," in this context, doesn't mean "bad" or "lame." It comes from the Latin pathos, meaning "feeling." The word "fallacy" comes from the Latin fallax, meaning "deceitful" or "false.

I remember it from English GCSE (1989) and it stuck with me. It probably appeared in my A Level and literate degree. It’s not a topic of everyday conversation, mind.

I remember learning the term in English class when I was about 15.

I'm 55 and never heard of it interesting though

I, and my kids, know it. But they are Y11. There's a lot in Thomas Hardy and Gatsby. No idea where the pathetic comes in but we all know what it refers to.

Its meaning is being defined a little loosely on the thread - it’s not merely that the weather matches the mood but that human emotions are given to non-human things in order to reflect the character’s inner feelings. So ‘the flowers on the grave drooped in sadness’ is an example given here: www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/pathetic-fallacy

It’s definitely a thing. And I did my ‘O’ levels in 1974.

I wish they'd told us this years ago! It makes so much more sense.

I definitely did it at school and I didn't do English past GCSE so must have been then.

I guess a similar root to empathy and sympathy?

Pathetic fallacy is when the environment matches the mood of a character - sunny for when they are happy, stormy, rainy for when they are going through a turbulent time. They use this device in a lot of films.

Personification is the act of giving inanimate objects a personality or a voice. Think Toy Story 😃

It depends on your age - I’m mid 40s and it definitely wasn’t a term used during my English Lit GCSE. If asked how the author created a mood or whatever we’d have been expected to notice that the weather matched the character’s feelings but I’ve never come across the term ‘pathetic fallacy’ until this thread.
It seems a bit ironic as English teachers are supposed to be teaching kids to communicate clearly that jargon is used in their subject that sounds like it means something completely different.

We learned the concept in O level English in the 80s, but spiky old Ruskin’s pejorative term wasn’t applied to it then. So the Oxford Exam Board curriculum didn’t call for it to be defined that way. Ruskin was a strange man and one full of big opinions on elements of the arts, and prone to nastiness (I won’t go into the possible reasons for this!). My guess is that the term wasn’t considered academic in those days, but is widely accepted as shorthand for the concept now.

Agree with others that it’s a very standard bit of GCSE teaching: it’s such an easy technique to spot and reference. I would know if from my kids gCSE revision (& my own English studies/degree, I’m in my 50s)

Really interesting thread, I had never heard of pathetic fallacy and I got an A* in eng lit and lang GCSEs, and an A in English Lit a-level! I guess we just didn’t get taught it??

I am 52 and have an English A level and I am fairly certain we weren't taught it. My daughter learnt it in year 8. Odd conclusion to come to though that it's not a thing rather than take the time to do some research.

ooh sorry edited as I don't know why I quoted you!

Yeah its a pretty common literary technique, we were taught about it in GCSE's. The name is based on the Latin.

English was my favourite subject (schooled in 1970s) but I’ve honestly never heard of this phrase.

Or Wuthering Heights!

It's definitely a term I learned at school, and revisited at degree level (English Literature also). I'm baffled that somebody with an Eng. Lit. degree claims to not know the term.

ETA: I'm 48.

The first thing I would say is that the philosophy behind the Romantics’ use of it is based on a Protestant version of Christianity and a reaction to the Enlightenment. Therefore, its use is historically relevant.

Second, it was my understanding that Ruskin coined the phrase as a criticism of Romantic poetry not a descriptor. So its mainstream use as a term is one of those great misunderstandings; like Knut holding back the tides.

There is something else that I don’t have a confident grip on—maybe someone else can help?—there is a shift with the early Moderns in presenting the individual as centre to their world. Shakespeare’s tragedies are grapppling with this. By the time you get to the Romantics in English Literature, you have a more humancentric world view. Novels—-especially Gothic novels, use the relationship between weather and humans as both affecting each other.

So, I would say that its application as a critical term is time-relevant.

It seems a bit ironic as English teachers are supposed to be teaching kids to communicate clearly that jargon is used in their subject that sounds like it means something completely different.

Only if it's a bad teacher who doesn't explain the origin of the phrase and leaves students wondering why it's called "pathetic".

Mine were taught that in year 5 primary school. It’s a funny term.
I was a 70s/80s child and I don’t remember it.

Was definitely taught it at school in the 80s. Didn't use it at uni, I suspect. It really has been a standard term for donkey's years. It probably is taught a bit simply but at A level more subtlety of analysis will come in. It is rather heavily overused for A Christmas Carol. It's just very cold weather!

It's not the same as personification.

I'm more surprised a Lit graduate can't work out the word root of pathetic, if I'm honest!

Pathos is Greek, not Latin.
Fallax is Latin.