Subject
Re: Personification in LATH
From
Date
Body
A. Bouazza: Last week I intended to post the following compilation in response to Jansy's query regarding VN's use of pathetic fallacy. It is highly selective and gleaned from the novels only, but purports to show that this stylistic feature of VN's did not wane with the passing of time, i.e. from Ada onward, including the posthumous unfinished The Original of Laura.
Jansy Mello: Thanks, AB, for the efficient examples of "pathetic fallacy," focusing precisely on objects (latticed hallery, notice-board, clock, flame, trees and tree trunks, trail, novel). And the maddened crickets and that jazzband down there....I looked up "pathetic fallacy" and this encompassing term resulted very helpful.*.I see that what I had in mind, at first, were instances of "anthropomorfism" or "animism," whereas "personification"refers to abstractions. It's still a bit complicated to extrincate each from the animated corpus of VN's paragraphs, but I'll work on it!
..........................................................
* WIKI: In the critical discussion of literature and criticism of the Arts, the pathetic fallacy is akin toAnthropomorphism (ascribing humanity to animals), to Personification (ascribing personal, human qualities to an abstraction), and to Animism (ascribing a soul all animate and inanimate things).
The term Pathetic fallacy was coined by the 19th-century cultural critic John Ruskin, who introduced and used the term in the book Modern Painters (1856), as an expression of æsthetic judgement, and the disapproval of excessive sentiment in the execution of a work of art; yet, the pathetic fallacy occasionally is countered by the poetic license exercised by the artist.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
Jansy Mello: Thanks, AB, for the efficient examples of "pathetic fallacy," focusing precisely on objects (latticed hallery, notice-board, clock, flame, trees and tree trunks, trail, novel). And the maddened crickets and that jazzband down there....I looked up "pathetic fallacy" and this encompassing term resulted very helpful.*.I see that what I had in mind, at first, were instances of "anthropomorfism" or "animism," whereas "personification"refers to abstractions. It's still a bit complicated to extrincate each from the animated corpus of VN's paragraphs, but I'll work on it!
..........................................................
* WIKI: In the critical discussion of literature and criticism of the Arts, the pathetic fallacy is akin toAnthropomorphism (ascribing humanity to animals), to Personification (ascribing personal, human qualities to an abstraction), and to Animism (ascribing a soul all animate and inanimate things).
The term Pathetic fallacy was coined by the 19th-century cultural critic John Ruskin, who introduced and used the term in the book Modern Painters (1856), as an expression of æsthetic judgement, and the disapproval of excessive sentiment in the execution of a work of art; yet, the pathetic fallacy occasionally is countered by the poetic license exercised by the artist.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/