| 释义 |
bathos|ˈbeɪθɒs|
[a. Gr. βάθος depth. First made Eng. in sense 2 by Pope's treatise, the title being a parody on Longinus's περὶ ὕψους; subseq. in the more etymological sense 1.]
1. Depth; lowest phase, bottom.
[1638Sanderson Serm. II. 101 There is such a height, and depth, and length, and breadth in that love; such a βάθος in every dimension of it.] 1758Johnson Idler No. 79 ⁋7 Declining..to the very bathos of insipidity. 1840Marryat Olla Podr. (Rtldg.) 276, I am at the very bathos of stupidity.
2. Rhet. Ludicrous descent from the elevated to the commonplace in writing or speech; anticlimax.
1727Pope Bathos 71 While a plain and direct road is paved to their ὕψος, or sublime; no track has been yet chalked out to arrive at our βάθος, or profund. 1787J. Andrews Anecdotes s.v. Bathos, Had Ovid introduced this supper of Niobé between the death of her children and her own metamorphosis into stone, he would have furnished us, with a compleat instance of the Bathos. 1875McLaren Serm. Ser. ii. xii. 211 It is as absurd bathos as to say, the essentials of a judge are integrity, learning, and an ermine robe!
3. Hence gen. A ‘come-down’ in one's career.
1814T. Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 240 How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present! 1841Marryat Poacher xxviii, It was rather a bathos..to sink from a gentleman's son to an under usher. |