personification

=PERSONIFICATION=

====In writing field, personification means t he attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality or idea in human form.<1> It's an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person. ==== ==== It also can be regarded as a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities. <2> John Ruskin even termed sentimentalized, exaggerated personification the "pathetic fallacy." This rhetorical device is widely used by many poets, essayists and novelists. ====


 * **CONTENTS** ||
 * Examples ||
 * Categories ||
 * Functions ||
 * Forms ||
 * References ||
 * External Links ||

__EXAMPLES OF PERSONIFICATION__
==== For example, William Shakespeare, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist, used personification in //Romeo and Juliet// in the lines "Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,/ Who is already sick and pale with grief...". William Blake, who is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age, wrote, “O Rose, thou art sick!” in //The Sick Rose.// What's more, Characters in allegorical morality plays were named Good Deeds, Beauty, and Death. ====

Firstly, a figure intended to represent an abstract quality. It's showed in the following sentence. " Marianne is the personification of the French Republic".
==== Secondly, a person, animal, or object regarded as representing or embodying a quality, concept, or thing. Here is an example sentence. " He was the very personification of British pluck and diplomacy." ====

__ FUNCTIONS OF PERSONIFICATION __
==== Personification is usually employed to add vividness to expressions. Because people have a tendency to look at the world in human terms, it's not surprising that we often rely on personification (sometimes also known as prosopopoeia) to bring inanimate things to life.==== ==== Like other figures of speech, personification is much more than an ornamental device added to an essay or a story to keep readers amused. Used effectively, personification encourages us to view our surroundings from a new, and sometimes even creative perspective. As Zolta Kovecses mentioned in //Metaphor: A Practical Introduction// (2002), "personification permits us to use knowledge about ourselves to comprend other aspects of the world, such as natural forces, in animated objects, death, time, etc." <3> ====

In my opinion, personification can also function as a type of simile or metaphor.
==== Because poets or novelists sometimes make comparisions through personification, it can be viewed a special kind of simile ( an explicit or direct comparison ) or metaphor ( an implicit or indirect comparison ). Here is an example. In Robert Frost's poem "//Birches//", the personification of the trees as the girls is a kind of simile. ==== > ====You may see their trunks arching in the woods==== > ====Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground==== > ====Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair==== > ====Before them over their heads to dry in the sun====

In the following two lines of this poem, Robert Frost used a metaphor comparing "truth" to a plain-telling woman. He put personification into practice again.
> ====But I was going to say when Truth broke in==== > ====With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm====

<3> //A Practical Introduction//, Zolta Kovecses, 2002
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__EXTERNAL LINKS__
====(1)[|openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php]====

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__[Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1593) was an important source-book for personification.] __ (6)[]

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