Sunday

Matthew Harris (2008)


[Robert Gemmell Hutchison: The Pathos of Life]


Pathoscape

[pron: pey-thos-skeyp] noun [Origin: 2005; 2006 for def.] Etymology: pathos
"quality that arouses the emotions," 1668, from Gk. pathos "feeling, emotion”

when revisiting a place significant to your childhood, or, as the case may be, a place
you used to frequent with an old lover, such as

+ scape "place, or scene," 1773, abstracted from landscape; as a new comb. element,
first attested use 1796, in ‘prisonscape’

The Eden Garden
24 Omana Avenue

1. the connection between a place or setting and an emotion
2. a feeling of being confined to an earlier time and place

you can’t distinguish between your present-self and the self detained in the past.
You’re neither. You need a new definition. One where your internals rhyme.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice poem....but does pathoscape refer to only pains or suffering? can it refer to emotions in general?

Anonymous said...

nice poem. but can pathos refer to emotions in general?

Dr Jack Ross said...

Well, yes - would I suppose be the short answer.

I find the follwing definition (from the 2000 American Heritage Dictionary) online:

pa·thos (pths, -thôs)
n.
1. A quality, as of an experience or a work of art, that arouses feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow.
2. The feeling, as of sympathy or pity, so aroused.
[Greek, suffering; see kwent(h)- in Indo-European roots.]

The Greek derivation is important there. Rhetoricians generally like to use pathos, logos & ethos as headings for the three essential elements of effective speech: feeling / reason / & balance (or, perhaps, character) ...

Sue Wilson said...

Hi Matt, Now I see what your Doctorate thesis was all about. Very clever indeed.

Well done.