bathos
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbeɪθɒs/
rhymes: -eɪθɒs
Forms: form: bathoses
Etymology: Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.
Senses: examples: text: I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment...
ref: 1847, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, page 192:
glosses: Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.
examples: text: While a plain and direct Road is pav'd to their ὐψος, or sublime; no Track has been yet chalk'd out to arrive at our βάθος, or profund.
ref: 1727, Alexander Pope, Peri Bathous:
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low;
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
banality: unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic;
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
immaturity: lack of serious treatment of a topic;
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
hyperbole: excessiveness.
topics: literature
media
publishing
qualifier: the arts
glosses: The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
examples: text: How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present!
ref: 1814, Thomas Jefferson, Writings, IV.240:
text: I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance.
ref: 1847, Emily Brontë, chapter XXI, in Wuthering Heights:
text: Thus can the ideology of the fringe, the pinstripe mutterings of the nativist few, end up determining the trajectory of an entire nation. This is where bathos meets tragedy.
ref: 2018, Matthew d'Ancona, “The Tories are a party in crisis, their identity in desperate shape”, in Guardian:
glosses: A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.
Synonyms: sense: anticlimax
word: anticlimax
sense: artistic failure through banality
word: banality
sense: artistic failure through banality
word: triteness
sense: artistic failure through triviality
word: immaturity
sense: artistic failure through triviality
word: callowness
sense: artistic failure through hyperbole
word: chewing the scenery, hamminess
sense: artistic failure through overdone pathos
word: sappiness
sense: artistic failure through overdone pathos
word: cheesiness
sense: artistic failure through overdone pathos
word: tweeness
sense: artistic failure through overdone pathos
word: treacliness
Derived terms: bathetic
Related terms: comic relief