What is bathos?
An abrupt switch from emotional or elevated to trivial or commonplace.
The Highs and Lows of Bathos
Bathos is a literary term that refers to an abrupt switch from the emotional and elevated to trivial or commonplace. It's like ascending a mountain and then suddenly slipping on a banana peel and tumbling all the way down – both surprising and somewhat disappointing.
For writers, it can be a helpful tool. Introducing bathos can be a clever way to subvert the reader's expectations and to add humor or irony to the text. But like any literary device, it should be used with caution and intention.
Beautiful prose can be ruined by a jarring, unexpected descent into something less sophisticated, so it's important to use bathos purposefully and sparingly.
Let's take a closer look at two famous examples of bathos in literature.
In the famous fight between the god Poseidon and the hero Odysseus in The Odyssey, Poseidon reminds his opponent of all the awful things that he has encountered on his journey home, including sirens, cannibals, and the Cyclops. However, Odysseus replies by pointing out that he once defeated a Cyclops by blinding him with a wooden stake – a decidedly less impressive feat than the other challenges he had conquered on his journey.
In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare defies the conventions of love poetry by describing his mistress in less than flattering terms - she has bad breath, dull skin, and wiry hair. However, he then turns the poem around at the end and declares that he still loves her anyway because of her inner qualities.