Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry

Content

"Peri Bathous" is a blow Pope struck in an ongoing struggle against the "dunces." It is a prose parody of Longinus’ Peri Hupsous (On the Sublime), in that he imitates Longinus’ system for the purpose of ridiculing contemporary poets. According to John Upton, the title reflects an actual phrase in Longinus’ treatise, εἰ ἔστιν ὕψος τις ἢ βάθους τέχνη, in which “βάθους” is a scribal error for “πάθους”.

With the essay, Pope introduced the use of the term "bathos" (Greek βάθος, depth, the antonym to ὕψος (hupsos), height) to mean a failed attempt at sublimity, a ridiculous failure to sustain it, or, more generally, an anticlimax.

Although Pope's manual of bad verse offers numerous methods for writing poorly, of all these ways to "sink," the method that is most remembered now is the act of combining very serious matters with very trivial ones. The radical juxtaposition of the serious with the frivolous does two things. First, it violates "decorum," or the fittingness of subject, and, second, it creates humor with an unexpected and improper juxtaposition.

Comic use of the figures of speech

In chapter X, titled Of Tropes and Figures: and first of the variegating, confusing and reversing Figures, Pope explains the comic use of the tropes and figures of speech. This part is continued in chapter XI, titled The Figures continued: Of the Magnifying and Diminishing Figures. Among the figures covered are: Catachresis.