Personification | Definition, Characteristics, Examples in Literature

Personification | Definition, Characteristics, Examples in Literature

Personification

Personification Definition

Personification is a figure in which natural phenomena and abstract ideas are invested with personality, and both inanimate objects and abstract ideas are endowed with the attributes of living beings.

“By this figure”, Nesfield explains, “we ascribe intelligence and personality to inanimate things”.

In this figure the personified idea or object is mostly written with a capital letter.

What is Personification?

There is an instinct in man’s nature which, particularly ‘in moods of intense feeling or exalted imagination, urges him to believe that inanimate objects or even abstract ideas are endowed with sensibility, and that they can think, feel and act like living beings. This attribution of qualities and feelings of living beings to both inanimate objects and abstract ideas or ascription of personality to abstract ideas is known as Personification.

Examples

In the statement ‘Fortune is merry’ we get an example of personification. Here an abstract idea (‘Fortune’) is represented as a merry person, i.e., a sign of personality (i.e., ‘merry’) is ascribed to it.

Again, in the statement ‘Let the foods clap their hands’ we get another instance of personification. Here inanimate objects (‘floods”) are endowed with human attributes (i.e., the capacity to clap hands to express rejoicing).

In another example ‘Opportunity knocks at the door but once’ we find that an abstract idea (Opportunity) is endowed with a personal attribute (i.e., the capacity to knock at the door).

Proud be the rose, with rains and dews. -Wordsworth

And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was Tyrannous and strong. -Coleridge

Lightning my pilot sits. – Shelley

Fortune is merry,

And in this mood will give us anything. -Shakespeare

Ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms.

Quite vanquished him. – Shakespeare

Or when rich China vessels fallen from high.

In glitt’ring dust, and painted fragments lie. -Pope

What is done in all these cases? In the first place, certain elements, belonging to nature (rose’, ‘storm-blast’ and ‘lightning), two abstract ideas (‘fortune’ and ‘ingratitude”) and an inanimate object (‘China vessels’) are taken. In the second place, all these elements of nature, abstract ideas and the inanimate object are given the attribute of living being in proud be’, ‘came’ and ‘was tyrannous and strong’. ‘sits’, ‘is merry’ and ‘will give’, ‘vanquished’ and ‘fallen’ and ‘lie’.

The imagination of the author or speaker has endowed all these natural elements, abstract ideas and the inanimate object with the action or feeling of a living being. The figure, by means of which a speaker or an author, gives a living attribute to nature, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea is known as the personification (Gk. prosopopeia).

Characteristics of Personification

The chief characteristics of Personification are the following:

(i) Nature, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea, is invested with the attribute of a living being.

(ii) This has a sort of action, conduct, feeling or, in short, the feature of a living being.

(iii) This is done in the imagination of the speaker or author. The personification, as a figure of speech, is natural to man. It may be an artistic device with poets and prose writers, but it is deeply rooted in the human habit and comes out in any mood of excitement or exaltation,

(iv) All personifications are a special class of metaphors since in them personal attributes are ascribed or shifted to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.

Personification Examples with Illustrations

(a) Fear at my heart, as at a cup.

My life-blood seemed to sip. (Coleridge)

This is an example of personification.

In this figure an abstract idea or an inanimate object is endowed with the personality or attributes of a living being.

Here an abstract idea (Fear’) is invested with the attribute of a living being (i.e., a tiger’s ability to sip blood).

(b) Great pines groan aghast. (Shelley)

This is a personification.

In this figure inanimate objects and abstract ideas are represented as living beings invested with attributes and personality.

Here inanimate objects (pines”) are endowed with the attribute of a living being (i.e., the capacity to groan).

(c) Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms.

Quite vanquished him. (Shakespeare)

This is a personification.

In this figure inanimate objects and abstract ideas are invested with the attributes of a living being.

Here an abstract idea (Ingratitude”) is endowed with a personal attribute (i.e., the capacity to vanquish someone).

(d) But Patience, to prevent that murmur, soon replies.  -Milton

This is a personification.

In a personification, nature, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object is invested with the attribute of a living being.

Here ‘patience’, an abstract idea, is invested with the attribute of a living being in the word ‘replies’. The poet imagines patience as replying, like a living being, to a question.

(e) But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

Rich with the spoils of time deed ne’er unroll. -Gray

This is a personification.

In a personification, nature, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object is given the attribute of a living being.

Here ‘knowledge’, an abstract idea, is given the attribute of a living being in did ne’er unroll’. In the poet’s imagination, this abstract idea is found to possess the function of a living being by not unrolling the ‘page’ of ‘knowledge’.

(f) And Studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large.  -Bacon

This is an instance of Personification.

The personification consists in investing a natural element, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea with the attribute of a living being in the imagination of the speaker or writer.

In the present case, studies’, an abstract idea, is given the attribute of living being in ‘do give forth. In fact, the writer imagines studies to possess the function of a living being in giving forth directions.

Examples of Personification in Literature

  1. And Melancholy marked him for her own. (Gray)
  2. The rose loves her beauty most when she is bathed in rains and dews.
  3. Pride goeth forth on horseback, grand and gay,

But cometh back on foot, and begs its way.

  1. Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor. (Gray)

  1. Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, ‘This was a man !’ (Shakespeare)

  1. Laughter holding both her sides.
  2. Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul. (Gray)

  1. Death lays his icy hand on kings. (Shirley)
  2. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies. (Milton)

  1. Where Darkness spreads his jealous wings.
  2. This season’s Daffodil,

She never hears, What change, what chance, what chill

Cut down last year’s. (Kipling)

  1. When the present has latched its postern behind my tremulous story. (Hardy) 13. But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill. (Shakespeare)

  1. The fog comes on little cat feet. (Sandburg)
  2. If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise. (Gray)
  3. Athens was the eye of Greece.
  4. Venice the eldest child of Liberty. (Wordsworth)
  5. Expectation mute/Gapes round the silent circle’s peupled

walls. (Byron)

  1. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er varoll. (Gray)
  2. Tears on hollow cheek

Told what no tongue could speak.

  1. Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu.
  2. Fair laughs the morn. (Gray)
  3. Christian justice is strangely mute and seemingly blind. –Ruskin (The abstract idea ‘Christian justice’ is given the attribute of a living being in ‘ is ‘mute and blind.)
  4. Stern o’er each bosom Reason holds her state. -Goldsmith (‘Reason’, an abstract idea, is invested with the attribute of a living being in ‘holds her state.)
  5. And melancholy marked him for her own. -Gray

(The abstract idea ‘Melancholy’ is invested with the attribute of a living being in ‘marked’ and ‘for her own’.)

  1. Death lays his icy hand on kings. – Shirley

(Death, an abstract idea, receives the attribute of a living being in the expression ‘lays his icy hand’.)

  1. This casket India’s glowing gems unlocks. -Pope

(The inanimate object ‘casket’ has the attribute of a living being in ‘unlocks’.)

  1. Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare. – Pope

(The inanimate object ‘tresses’ is invested with the attribute of a living being in the verb ‘ensnare’.)

  1. Nature might stand up

And say to the world, This was man!  -Shakespeare

(Nature gets the attribute of a living being in the expression stand up and say’. The ‘world’, an abstract idea, is also invested with the attribute of a living being, as listening to Nature’)

  1. Thought moves faster than action.

(Here thought’ and ‘action’, abstract ideas, have got the function of a living being in ‘moves faster’.)

 

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