Poetic Terms Dictionary
Technique

Anticlimax

From Greek anti (against) + klimax (ladder). The deliberate version is bathos; used satirically in mock-heroic poetry.

Definition

A sudden drop from the serious or elevated to the trivial or absurd, used for comic or critical effect.

Example

Pope: 'Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.'

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