Psychology., feeling or emotion.
Psychiatry., an expressed or observed emotional response.
Restricted, flat, or blunted affect may be a symptom of mental illness, especially schizophrenia.
Obsolete., affection; passion; sensation; inclination; inward disposition or feeling.
Now let's replace that in my original phrase:
> prose intending to imitate the affect of poorly composed sentences
becomes
> prose intending to imitate the feeling or emotion of poorly composed sentences
My point was that the author is trying to convey a specific feeling by way of poorly composed sentences. Perhaps they want a colloquial feel or a ranting feel or a rambling one. An obvious example would be the massive run-on sentence in Ulysses.
