Editing Pathetic fallacy (section)

==History of the phrase==
Ruskin coined the term ''pathetic fallacy'' to criticize the sentimentality that was common to the poetry of the late 18th century, especially among poets like [[Robert Burns|Burns]], [[William Blake|Blake]], [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]], [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]], and [[John Keats|Keats]].<ref>Hillary, Clark. "'Terrible Iterations': Reading Tess without Consent". ''Victorian Literature and Culture''. Volume 48 Issue 2. Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2020</ref> Wordsworth supported this use of personification based on emotion by claiming that "objects ... derive their influence not from properties inherent in them ... but from such as are bestowed upon them by the minds of those who are conversant with or affected by these objects."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZpcVAAAAYAAJ&dq=wordsworth%22affected+by+these+objects%22&pg=PA199 Wordsworth, William. Knight, William Angus, editor. ''The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. 4''.] W Paterson (1883) pp. 199</ref> However Tennyson, in his own poetry, began to refine and diminish such expressions, and introduced an emphasis on what might be called a more scientific comparison of objects in terms of sense perception. The old order was beginning to be replaced by the new just as Ruskin addressed the matter; after Ruskin the use of the pathetic fallacy began to disappear.<ref name="autogenerated2">''Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics'', Alex Preminger, Ed., Princeton University Press, 1974 {{ISBN|0-691-01317-9}}</ref> As a critic, Ruskin proved influential and is credited with having helped to refine poetic expression.<ref name="autogenerated2">''Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics'', Alex Preminger, Ed., Princeton University Press, 1974 {{ISBN|0-691-01317-9}}</ref>

The meaning of the term has changed significantly from the idea Ruskin had in mind.<ref name="Fowler1994">{{cite book |last=Fowler |first=H.W. |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofmo00fowl |title=A Dictionary of Modern English Usage |publisher=Wordsworth Editions |year=1994 |isbn=9781853263187 |series=Wordsworth Collection |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofmo00fowl/page/425 425] |url-access=registration |orig-year=1926}}</ref> Ruskin's original definition is "emotional falseness", or the falseness that occurs to one's perceptions when influenced by violent or heightened emotion. For example, when a person is unhinged by grief, the clouds might seem darker than they are, or perhaps mournful or uncaring.<ref name="Ruskin1856vIIIpt4">{{cite book |last=Ruskin |first=John |title=Modern Painters |date=1856 |volume=iii, pt. 4 |at= |chapter= XII: Of the Pathetic Fallacy}}</ref><ref name="Hurwit1982">{{cite journal |last=Hurwit |first=Jeffrey M. |year=1982 |title=Palm Trees and the Pathetic Fallacy in Archaic Greek Poetry and Art |journal=The Classical Journal |publisher=The Classical Association of the Middle West and South |volume=77 |pages=193–199 |jstor=3296969 |number=3}}</ref> 

The particular definition that Ruskin used for the word fallacy has since become obsolete. The word "fallacy" in modern usage refers primarily to an example of flawed reasoning, but for Ruskin and writers of the 19th century and earlier, ''fallacy'' could be used to mean simply a "falseness".<ref>"Fallacy". ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford University Press. 1st ed. 1909.</ref> Similarly, the word "pathetic" simply meant for Ruskin "emotional" or "pertaining to emotion."<ref>"Pathetic". ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford University Press. 1st ed. 1909.</ref>

Ruskin states: "so long as we see that the ''feeling'' is true, we pardon, or are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy."<ref name="Ruskin1856vIIIpt4" /> Commenting on a French ballad he says: "there is not, from beginning to end of it, a single poetical expression, except in one stanza. ... [I]n the very presence of death, for an instant, his own emotions conquer him. He records no longer the facts only, but the facts as they seem to him."<ref name="Ruskin1856vIIIpt4" />