Etymology of Personification
The term “personification” originates from the Latin word personificare. It is a combination of persona (meaning “person”) and facere (meaning “to make” or “to create”). The concept of personification has its roots in ancient rhetoric and literary traditions, dating back to ancient Greece and Rome. It involves attributing human characteristics, emotions, or qualities to non-human entities or abstract concepts.
Meanings of Personification
- Primary Meaning of Personification: The attribution of human qualities, such as emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, to non-human entities or objects.
- Literary Use of Personification: Commonly employed in poetry to make abstract ideas more concrete and relatable; for instance, portraying death as a character with a specific personality and motivation.
- Advertising Application of Personification: Utilized in advertising to make products relatable and approachable to consumers, where a personified object like a car may be featured in ads to appeal to potential buyers.
- Everyday Speech: Used in everyday language to describe something using human characteristics to enhance understanding or emphasize a particular point.
Personification in Grammar
In grammar, personification is not a specific word category like a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. Instead, personification is a literary device or figure of speech used to give human qualities or characteristics to non-human things, animals, or ideas. It is often used in writing and literature to make descriptions more vivid and engaging.
Here are the grammatical word categories you requested, along with an example of personification:
- Noun: A person, place, thing, or idea. Example: The sun smiled down on the children at the playground.
- Verb: An action or state of being. Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
- Adjective: A word that describes or modifies a noun. Example: The old house creaked with every step.
- Adverb: A word that describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Example: The leaves rustled softly in the breeze.
Definition of Personification
Personification is a literary device in which human characteristics are attributed to non-human things such as animals, objects, or natural phenomena. This technique is often used to create a more vivid and imaginative description, as well as to evoke emotions and convey deeper meanings.
Types of Personification
There are several types of personification used in literature:
| Type | Definition | Example from Literature |
| Anthropomorphism | This type of personification attributes human-like qualities to animals such as talking or exhibiting human emotions. | For example in Aesop’s fables, animals are often portrayed with human characteristics such as the wise and talking tortoise in “The Tortoise and the Hare.” |
| Pathetic Fallacy | This type of personification attributes human emotions and actions to inanimate objects or natural phenomena such as the wind “howling” or the sun “smiling.” | Emily Brontë uses pathetic fallacy in Wuthering Heights where the stormy weather mirrors the tumultuous emotions of the characters. |
| Zoomorphism | This type of personification attributes animal-like qualities to humans, such as calling someone a “snake” or a “lion.” | In Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Mark Antony refers to the assassins as “honorable men” while subtly likening them to dangerous animals. |
| Prosopopoeia | This type of personification involves giving a voice to an abstract concept or an object that cannot speak, such as “death” or “time.” | In John Donne’s poem “Death Be Not Proud,” death is personified and addressed as if it were a living being with human emotions and vulnerabilities. |
| Metaphorical Personification | This type of personification uses a metaphor to compare a non-human thing to a human attribute or quality, such as describing a mountain as “majestic” or a storm as “angry.” | In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” the titular bird is described as a “prophet” and “thing of evil,” attributing human-like qualities to the bird. |
| Zoomorphism | This type of personification involves attributing animal-like characteristics or qualities to non-living things or abstract concepts, such as “a furious storm” or “a cruel wind.” | In William Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” daffodils are personified as “dancing” and “tossing their heads” in the breeze. |
| Hyperbole | This type of personification involves exaggerating the qualities or characteristics of non-human things for effect, such as “the waves roared with anger” or “the sun scorched the earth.” | In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, he uses hyperbolic personification when he says “stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires,” as if the stars have their own awareness and can help keep his secrets hidden. |
| Synecdoche | This type of personification involves using a part of an object to represent the whole, or vice versa, such as “all hands on deck” to refer to the entire crew of a ship. | In Julius Caesar, when Mark Antony says “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” he uses synecdoche, as “ears” represent the audience’s attention and willingness to listen. |
| Metonymy | This type of personification involves using a related term to represent the object or concept being personified, such as “the crown” to refer to a king or queen. | In William Shakespeare’s plays, he frequently uses metonymy, like referring to the monarchy as “the crown” and the government as “the throne.” |
| Allegory | This type of personification involves using characters or objects to represent abstract concepts or ideas, such as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the animals represent different social classes and political ideologies. | In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the characters of Napoleon and Snowball symbolize Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, respectively, and the farm’s transformation mirrors the events of the Russian Revolution and the rise of totalitarian regimes. |
Suggested Readings
- Attridge, Derek, and Henry Staten. The Craft of Poetry: Dialogues on Minimal Interpretation. Routledge, 2015.
- Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1947.
- De Mul, Jos. The Tragedy of Finitude: Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of Life. Yale University Press, 2004.
- Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. University of Chicago Press, 1987.
- Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
- Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Indiana University Press, 1985.
- Turner, Mark. The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language. Oxford University Press, 1996.
