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The "Sentient Plume" : The Theory of the Pathetic Fallacy in Anglo-American Avian Poetry, 1856-1945

Earnhardt, Eric Donavon
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459369357

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, English.
Critics often deem John Ruskin’s theory of the pathetic fallacy a prohibition on projections of human-like qualities onto nature, including animals. This supposed prohibition has seemed not only anthropocentric by denying real resemblances between human and nonhuman life, but also a severe restriction upon the freedom of poets to use figurative language to express sympathy with nature. Critics have not, however, sufficiently accounted for how Ruskin, a recognized forerunner of ecological consciousness, could have developed this supposedly anti-ecological theory; moreover, they have overlooked how the twentieth-century dismissal of the theory’s relevance contradicts its evident influence upon Victorian and modernist poetry. This dissertation addresses these neglected critical problems by examining the humanization of birds in literature and science, considering the theory of the pathetic fallacy alongside the scientific practice of “critical anthropomorphism.” This approach explains how Ruskin's theory advocates critical anthropomorphism among poets while distinguishing between figurative language and illusions amidst violent emotions. Ruskin’s theory appreciated the aesthetic and artistic possibilities produced by “the instinct which leads us…to attribute life to the lowest forms of organic nature,” as well as the susceptibility to be deceived by it. By advocating an informed awareness of this instinct, Ruskin theorized a less personal style of lyric poetry and urged poets to use pathetic fallacies only as tools for faithfully representing interior landscapes, thereby anticipating T. S. Eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry and his concept of the “objective correlative.” The first part of this dissertation explains the history and theory of the pathetic fallacy, often as it relates to birds, from Ruskin and Charles Darwin’s anthropomorphic methods of speculation, to the theory’s continued if often concealed influence in the literary criticism of George Santayana and T. S. Eliot, to its relevance for today’s ecological and cognitive literary critics. The second part applies this critical method to poems that attempt to present “real birds,” such as Matthew Arnold’s “Poor Matthias!,” Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “The Sea and the Skylark” and “The Woodlark,” and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, “Landscapes,” and Four Quartets, and many other contemporary and later poems. Instead of rejecting Ruskin’s aesthetic values, modern poetry that attends to the lives of animals often exhibits Ruskin’s aesthetic and ethical commitment to a more critical and “careful anthropomorphization” as encouraged by Jane Bennett and other ecological critics. A sympathetic reading of the theory of the pathetic fallacy, therefore, enhances understandings of poets who imagine the inner lives of animals in their poetry, and reveals the necessity of critically relating their imaginings to human perception and interior experience.
Kurt Koenigsberger (Advisor)
Michael Clune (Committee Member)
Sarah Gridley (Committee Member)
Todd Oakley (Committee Member)
333 p.
Literature
pathetic fallacy, objective correlative, animals, birds, anthropomorphism, poetry, science, ethology, philosophy

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Earnhardt, E. D. (2016). The "Sentient Plume" : The Theory of the Pathetic Fallacy in Anglo-American Avian Poetry, 1856-1945 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459369357

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Earnhardt, Eric. The "Sentient Plume" : The Theory of the Pathetic Fallacy in Anglo-American Avian Poetry, 1856-1945. 2016. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459369357.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Earnhardt, Eric. "The "Sentient Plume" : The Theory of the Pathetic Fallacy in Anglo-American Avian Poetry, 1856-1945." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459369357

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1459369357
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This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.