How does an author employ 'bathos' within a satirical text?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. Producing an abrupt, anticlimactic descent from elevated grandeur to trivial banality
- Step 1: Bathos occurs when a serious, dignified, or poetic tone suddenly collapses into the ridiculous or commonplace. Step 2. Satirists use bathos to mock pompous institutions, inflated egos, and melodramatic hypocrisy. Answer: Producing an abrupt, anticlimactic descent from elevated grandeur to trivial banality. Why not the others: Catharsis is the purging of pity and terror in tragedy; bathos deliberately punctures seriousness.
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