What Theme Appears in Much European Romantic Poetry, Based on the Excerpts You Read in This Chapter?

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Personification is an important literary device—as a form of metaphor, personification compares two things quickly and efficiently, oft in a poetic fashion. But what is it?

In this guide, nosotros'll hash out what personification is, what it does, and why so many writers apply it, also as a whole bunch of examples to assistance you lot go accepted to identifying personification when you encounter information technology.

body_pug-1 This isn't quite personification, just it is beautiful.

What Is Personification?

Personification is pretty simple, but earlier nosotros tin get into what it is, we demand to discuss metaphors.

Personification is a form of metaphor, a literary device comparison two things by applying the qualities of i affair to some other. One famous example is the Walt Whitman line, "And your very flesh shall exist a great poem." Whitman isn't suggesting that your mankind is literally a poem—that would be both impossible and uncomfortable—merely rather that your entire self is a work of art. Within the context of the Leaves of Grass preface, where this quote comes from, the quote ways that, through honey and patience and living with meaning and purpose, your entire self will have meaning and purpose, just equally a poem does.

Though Whitman'south quote is a metaphor, it'due south not personification. Personification is a more than specific type of metaphor in which something that is non human being is given human traits. Whitman's quote compares flesh, something man, to a verse form, something inhuman, meaning information technology'south non personification.

Instead, personification will await something similar this quote from John Keats' "To Fall":

"Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run."

Here, the thing doing the conspiring is autumn, and 'him' is the maturing lord's day. Neither of these things can conspire—autumn is a flavour, and the dominicus is a star—only for the purpose of illustrating how perfect the season is, Keats suggests that they tin.

In this example, Keats gives both autumn and the sun the human being power to conspire. That doesn't mean that Keats wants you to picture the lord's day and fall literally whispering in ane another's ears; he'southward suggesting harmony and a natural order of things. As the lord's day matures (another affair it isn't technically doing, at least not in this verse form) into the later stages of the year, the fruit on the vines begins to ripen just in time for the harvest. Equally the sun moves further from the earth and the weather condition grows colder, the season switches to autumn, as if the two were consciously working together. Hence, the idea of conspiring.

Equally you can meet, personification tin can add together a dramatic and more evocative flair to writing. If Keats' poem had simply read, "The sun gets further away from the earth as the season changes to autumn, only in fourth dimension for the fruit to ripen," it wouldn't feel particularly inspiring or interesting. But when he suggests that the dominicus and autumn are conspiring, nosotros get a much more than vivid, memorable picture of what the seasons are like.

body_monkey-1 This isn't personification either.

Examples of Personification

Keats is just one writer using personification—at that place are lots of different ways to apply this literary device to great consequence. You don't fifty-fifty need to exist world-renowned Romantic poet to use it!

Basic Examples of Personification

Since personification is just giving something that isn't man the characteristics of a human, information technology's very simple to do! Cheque out these examples:

The stars winked in the night sky.

Stars, having no eyes, cannot wink. Only when you see this phrase, you know that they're twinkling.

The bridge stretched over the interstate.

A bridge can't stretch, but from this phrase, nosotros get the mental image of information technology being long and gracefully curved.

The cave rima oris yawned.

A mouth tin yawn, just a cave oral fissure cannot. Still, nosotros get the mental image of the cave oral fissure stretched wide.

The smell of baking muffins welcomed united states within.

A smell tin't welcome, but we tin notwithstanding understand that the narrator of this judgement feels welcomed by the homey smell.

Poetry Examples of Personification

Nosotros often run into figurative language like personification in poetry, where a few words take to conduct a lot of meaning. Some of the nigh famous examples in poetry are:

"Because I could not end for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held just just Ourselves –
And Immortality."

- "Because I could not stop for Expiry" past Emily Dickinson

In this poem, Expiry is personified as a person driving a carriage. Within the confines of this poem, Expiry may in fact be a person; just Dickinson isn't writing about a literal event that happened to her. She's using her relationship with Death figuratively, illustrating how Death goes almost its business organisation with picayune regard for humanity's work and leisure.

"Blackberries
Big as the brawl of my thumb, and impaired as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-ruddy juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had non asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides."

- "Blackberrying" by Sylvia Plath

Plath makes a directly comparison between blackberries and humans—she says blackberries, like eyes, are 'dumb,' in that they cannot speak. But we also know that they tin't squander, they can't be a sisterhood, and they tin't love or accommodate themselves. Plath isn't trying to tell us that these are magic blackberries with all those traits. She's using personification to illustrate her relationship with these blackberries, demonstrating a unique bond with them. Even without the context of the whole poem, Plath's use of personification shows us that these blackberries aren't just fruit to her.

Literary Examples of Personification

Poets aren't the only writers using personification—information technology'south also valuable for prose writers! Check out these famous examples from literature:

"[The optics of TJ Eckleburg] look out of no face, merely, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them in that location to fatten his practise in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal incomprehension or forgot them and moved away. Merely his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground…."

- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

If these eyes were attached to a human beingness, they might brood as an extension of the human. Just the optics of TJ Eckleburg are painted on a billboard, not attached to a human face. It's impossible for them to brood, as they don't have emotions. However, this quote demonstrates the mood that the eyes cast over the valley; it's dark and dreary, and the fashion that Fitzgerald characterizes these painted eyes reflects that.

"There is something subversive near this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the calorie-free, every bit if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard, though silently. […] Light pours downwardly upon it from the sun, truthful, only also heat rises, from the flowers themselves, you lot can experience information technology: like holding your hand an inch above an arm, a shoulder. It breathes, in the warmth, breathing itself in."

- The Handmaid'southward Tale by Margaret Atwood

This paragraph has a couple of instances of personification. Cached things don't actually outburst upward—they grow, just to 'flare-up' is to move all of a sudden, which is something that these plants don't practice. Besides, Atwood says that the heat breathes. Considering estrus doesn't have lungs, it can't breathe, but it's clear that Atwood is giving everything in Serena's garden a sense of life and then that even the heat has vitality.

Pop Culture Examples of Personification

You don't take to look to books yous've read in schoolhouse to find personification, either! Everything from Television receiver shows to music to video games can contain personification, such as these examples:

Inside Out

Though everything that happens in the moving picture Within Out can be read to be happening literally—it's a fantasy movie!—it's too a class of metaphor. We know that in existent life our emotions aren't lilliputian humanoid figures running effectually pulling levers, merely giving emotions like joy and sadness human characteristics encourages viewers to capeesh their complexity. Sadness isn't bad, and joy isn't always expert—when we requite them human traits, we meet that whatsoever emotion can hateful multiple things!

"You endeavour to scream simply terror takes the sound earlier yous make it
You showtime to freeze every bit horror looks you right betwixt the eyes
You lot're paralyzed
'Crusade this is thriller, thriller night
And no i'due south gonna save y'all from the beast about to strike."

- "Thriller" by Michael Jackson

There are a few examples of personification in this vocal—in just this verse, terror "takes the audio" and horror "looks you correct between the eyes." Logically, nosotros know that emotions can't take or wait at annihilation. But using that kind of language to describe fright gives it an agency that infuses this song with energy. Information technology's non difficult to empathise why this works then well; if you've ever been afraid, you know how it tin can affect the mode your body feels, sometimes paralyzing you. That's what Jackson is borer into in this vocal: the sense that fearfulness can trap you and make yous feel like you lot're out of control.

What's Next?

Personification is just one of many literary devices at your disposal. Bank check out this list of literary devices and how they're used for a whole bunch more!

Want to know more about how the Valley of Ashes is constructed inThe Great Gatsby? Learn more from this post all well-nigh how the Valley of Ashes works as a symbol!

Agreement how personification works tin assistance you in AP literature—just like this reading listing for AP lit students!

What kind of human and so likes being described by his mother as the personification of "the brute" that he adopts it equally his ain nickname? Learn more than about the strange life and times of Aleister Crowley with this article.

Have friends who also need help with exam prep? Share this article!

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Virtually the Author

Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English language with a artistic writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring Yard-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to aid them gear up for their college didactics.

fulleryoughter.blogspot.com

Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/personification-examples-poetry-literature

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