This week: When Weather Weeps With You Edited by: Jayne  
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| Hello, I'm Jayne! Welcome to my poetic explorations. My goal with these newsletters is to take us on a journey through the forms, devices, and concepts that make poetry so powerful. Sometimes, a series of newsletters will interconnect, while other issues will stand alone. I strive to ensure they are informative but fun and do my best to spark your curiosity. Don’t forget to check out this issue's curated selection of poetry! |
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What Is Pathetic Fallacy?
Have you ever felt out of sync with the world yet still in tune with nature? It's as though the weather or environment echoes your emotions. Perhaps the gloomy sky mourns with you, or a storm echoes your anger. Churning waves may reflect your inner turmoil. Maybe the wind taunts you by silencing you (or maybe it carries voices from the past).
These reflections are not all in your head—it's a literary technique called pathetic fallacy. Pathetic fallacy isn't exactly the same as personification, although they have many similarities (think sisters, not twins). Personification attributes human characteristics to inanimate things. Pathetic fallacy is the deliberate emotional synchronicity between the external world and your internal state. Think of it as the environment amplifying your emotions.
Why It Works
Pathetic fallacy works because it deepens the reader's connection to the poem. It's not a description of feelings and attributes but an embedded emotional and sensory experience in a shared, observable way. There is no rain or sun, only grief, anger, renewal, or happiness. It's the bridge between an abstracted inner life and concrete external realities. It reminds us of our connection to something larger and helps you tell your story.
Addressing the Downsides
A common criticism of pathetic fallacy is it comes across as overwrought, melodramatic, and heavy-handed. This can be avoided by anchoring in context so it aligns naturally with your theme. If your storm reflects liberation instead of sorrow, your statements and word choices need to reflect it. In Wilfred Owen's “Exposure,” the biting wind reflects the hopeless despair of soldiers in the war with subtlety and finesse instead of an overbearing "look at my staggering emotion!" kind of vibe. The natural elements mirror emotional and physical exhaustion, grounding the reader in their shared experience of hopelessness.
You can also balance pathetic fallacy with other devices like imagery, metaphor, and tone to layer your poem better and add some texture. In Seamus Heaney's “Storm on the Island,” the storm reflects the isolation and human vulnerability while the imagery paints the physical scene. This amplifies the tension between humans and nature while the descriptive imagery immerses the reader in the storm.
To keep things interesting for the reader, try to avoid predictable pairings. Yes, rain is tears, and sunshine is joy. But a downpour can flood you, and the sun can burn you. Drizzle might not be gloomy—maybe it's the end stage of your crying and, therefore, uplifting. In "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot uses the barren, desolate landscape as an extension of the fragmented human psyche and societal decay. The desolation of the environment reflects the existential emptiness of the poem's characters in a more abstract use of pathetic fallacy.
So, go ahead and give pathetic fallacy a shot, and see if you can get the weather to perfectly match your mood.
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Cat in a box haiku. 2nd Place, Bard's Hall Contest, May 2023.
#2296186 by Beholden  |
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Poetry: December 04, 2024 Issue [#12869]
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