(1856) Literary Theory Term coined by the English writer John Ruskin (1819–1900), and derived from the Greek word pathos meaning ‘feeling’.
Attribution of human feelings and motives to inanimate objects such as landscapes and buildings; a process common in Gothic and Romantic writings, for example the anthropomorphism of William Wordsworth.
J Ruskin, ‘Of the Pathetic Fallacy’, Modern Painters, vol. III, part IV, ch. 12 [1856], repr. in Literary Theory since Plato, H Adams, ed. (New York, 1971), 616–23
RF