bathos

noun8

1. •
   A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to

   • While a plain and direct Road is pav'd to their ὐψος, or sublime; no Track has been yet chalk'd out to arrive at our βάθος, or profund. — 1727
2. •
   An anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low.
3. •
   A banality: an unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic.
4. •
   Immaturity: a lack of serious treatment of a topic.
5. •
   A hyperbole: excessiveness.
6. •
   Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.

   • I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment... — 1847
7. •
   The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
8. •
   A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.

   • How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present! — 1814