What does personification mean in literature? Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons: definitions, examples. Where are the means of artistic expression used?

17.04.2019

Since school, we have all heard about such a concept as personification. What is this? Many have probably already forgotten. What is this, what is it used for and what is characteristic of it. Now we will try to remember and understand this issue in more detail.

Personification: definition of the concept, detailed description

Often this literary method used in fairy tales. Personification is the giving of thoughts, feelings, experiences, speech or actions to phenomena, inanimate objects and animals. objects can move independently, nature is a living world, and animals speak with human voices and are able to think in a way that only people can do in reality. The origin of personification dates back to ancient world when everything was based on myths. It is in myths that talking animals are first encountered, as well as giving things properties that are uncharacteristic for them. At the same time, one of the main tasks of personalization is to bring the abilities of the inanimate world closer to those that are characteristic of the living.

Impersonation Examples

You can understand the essence of personification more clearly by giving several examples:

What is the personification

What does it mean?

The personification (a word that gives life to objects) is often a verb, which can be found both before and after the noun that it describes, or rather, it brings it into action, animates it and creates the impression that an inanimate object can also fully exist , like a person. But this is not just a verb, but a part of speech that takes on much more more features, turning speech from ordinary into bright and mysterious, into unusual and at the same time capable of telling about a lot of things that characterize the techniques of personification.

Personalization as a literary trope

It is literature that is the source of the most colorful and expressive phrases that animate phenomena and objects. In literature, this trope is also called personalization, embodiment or anthropomorphism, metaphor or humanization. It is often used in poetry to create a more complete and melodic form. To make them more heroic and a reason to admire them, personification is often also used. What is this literary device that any other, such as an epithet or an allegory, all serve to embellish phenomena, to create a more impressive reality. It is enough to consider only a simple literary phrase: “The night bloomed with golden lights.” There is so much poetry and harmony in it, flight of thought and dreaminess, colorful words and brightness of expression of thought.

One could simply say that the stars are burning in the night sky, but such a phrase would be full of banality. And just one single personification can radically change the sound of a seemingly familiar and understandable phrase. In addition, it should be noted that personification as a part of literature appeared due to the desire of the authors to bring the description of folklore characters closer to the heroism and greatness of those spoken of in ancient Greek myths.

Using personification in everyday life

We hear and use examples of personification in everyday life almost every day, but we don’t think about the fact that it’s them. Should they be used in speech or is it better to avoid them? At their core, incarnations are mythopoetic in nature, but over a long period of their existence they have become an integral part and common everyday speech. It all started with the fact that when talking they began to use quotes from poems and others, which gradually turned into phrases that were already familiar to everyone. It seems that the common expression “the clock is rushing” is also a personification. It is used both in everyday life and in literature, and is in fact a typical personification. Fairy tale and myth are the main sources, in other words, the foundation of those metaphors that are used in conversation today.

Reincarnated personification

What is it?

This statement can be explained from the point of view of the evolution of personification. In ancient times, personification was used as a religious and mythological device. Now it is used to transfer the abilities of living beings to inanimate objects or phenomena and is used in poetry. That is, personalization gradually acquired a poetic character. Nowadays, there are many disputes and conflicts about this, since specialists from different scientific fields interpret the nature of personification in their own way. A reincarnated or ordinary personification still has not lost its meaning, although it is described with different points vision. Without it, it is difficult to imagine our speech and, in fact, modern life.

Personification is the endowment of inanimate objects with the signs and properties of a person [... Star speaks to star (L.); The earth sleeps in a blue radiance... (L.)]. Personification is one of the most common tropes. The tradition of its use goes back to oral folk poetry (Don’t make noise, mother, green oak tree, don’t bother me, good fellow, think about it...).

Personifications are used to describe natural phenomena, things surrounding a person that are endowed with the ability to feel, think, act

A special type of personification is personification (from Latin persona - face, facere - to do) - complete likening of an inanimate object to a person. In this case, objects are not endowed with private characteristics of a person (as in personification), but acquire a real human appearance:

Allegory

Allegory (Gr. allēgoria - allegory, from allos - other, agoreúo - I say) is the expression of abstract concepts in specific artistic images. For example, in fables and fairy tales, stupidity and stubbornness are embodied in the image of a Donkey, cowardice in the image of a Hare, and cunning in the image of a Fox. Allegorical expressions can receive an allegorical meaning: autumn has come can mean “old age has come.”

Individual author's allegories often take on the character of an expanded metaphor, receiving a special compositional solution. For example, A.S. Pushkin’s allegory underlies the figurative system of poems “Arion”, “Anchar”, “Prophet”, “Nightingale and Rose”; at M.Yu. Lermontov - poems “Dagger”, “Sail”, “Cliff”, etc.

Metonymy

Metonymy (from the gr. metonomadzo - to rename) is the transfer of a name from one object to another based on their contiguity. For example: Porcelain and bronze on the table (P

The metonymy of definitions is of interest. For example, in Pushkin the combination overstarched impudence characterizes one of the secular guests. Of course, in terms of meaning, the definition overstarched can only be attributed to nouns that name some details of a fashionable dandy’s toilet, but in figurative speech such a transfer of the name is possible. In fiction there are examples of such metonymy (Then a short old man with astonished glasses came. - Boone

Antonomasia

A special type of metonymy is antonomasia (gr. antonomasia - renaming) - a trope consisting in the use of one's own name in the meaning of a common noun. Hercules is sometimes figuratively called strong man. The use of the words Don Quixote, Don Juan, Lovelace, etc., in a figurative sense, has become firmly established in the language.

The names of famous public and political figures, scientists, and writers also acquire common meaning [We all look to Napoleons... (P.)].

An inexhaustible source of antonomasia is ancient mythology and literature.

However, antonomasia, based on rethinking the names of historical figures, writers and literary heroes. Publicists use this trope most often in headlines.

Synecdoche

A type of metonymy is synecdoche in the use of the name of a part instead of the whole, a particular instead of a general, and vice versa. (A yellow leaf flies inaudibly from the birch trees.) (Free thought and scientific audacity broke their wings about the ignorance and inertia of the political system

An epithet (from the gr. epitheton - application) is a figurative definition of an object or action (Through wavy fogs the moon makes its way, its sad light pours onto the sad meadows. - P.).

There are exact red viburnums

(golden autumn, tear-stained windows),

Epithets are most often colorful definitions expressed by adjectives

The creation of figurative epithets is usually associated with the use of words in a figurative meaning (cf.: lemon juice - lemon moonlight; a gray-haired old man - gray-haired fog; he lazily waved away mosquitoes - the river lazily rolls waves).

Epithets expressed in words that have figurative meanings are called metaphorical (A golden cloud spent the night on the chest of a giant cliff, in the morning it rushed off early, playing merrily across the azure ... - L.).

The epithet may be based on a metonymic transfer of the name; such epithets are called metonymic (...The white smell of daffodils, the happy, white spring smell... - L. T.). Metaphorical and metonymic epithets refer to tropes [cardboard love (G.); moth beauty, tearful morning (Ch.); blue mood (Cupr.); wet-lipped wind (Shol.); transparent silence (Paust.)].

The meaning of the word PERSONIFICATION in the Literary Encyclopedia

PERSONALIZATION

[or personification] - an expression that gives an idea of a concept or phenomenon by depicting it in the form of a living person endowed with properties this concept(for example, the Greeks and Romans depicted happiness in the form of a capricious goddess of fortune, etc.). Very often O. is used when depicting nature, the edges are endowed with one or another human traits, “comes to life”, for example: “the sea laughed” (Gorky) or the description of the flood in “ Bronze Horseman"Pushkin: "...The Neva all night/was rushing to the sea against the storm,/not defeating their violent foolishness.../and arguing

284 it became impossible for her.../ The weather became even more ferocious,/ The Neva swelled and roared.../ and suddenly, like a frenzied beast,/ it rushed at the city.../ Siege! Attack! evil waves, / like thieves, climb through the windows,” etc. O. was especially in use in precision and false-classical poetry, where it was carried out consistently and extensively; in Russian literature, examples of such O. were given by Tredyakovsky: “Riding to the Island of Love,” [SPB], 1730. O. is essentially, therefore, a transference of signs of animation to the concept or phenomenon and is represented as such. arr. type of metaphor (see). See "Trails". L.T.

Literary encyclopedia. 2012

Functions of personification in art

This artistic technique is used to solve various problems.

Adding playful aspects to children's learning. For example, fables are full of personifications of various kinds. Animals are endowed with human qualities, making it more interesting for the child to perceive the plot and find the moral of the work.
Creating an emotional tone of the text. Personification can be used to attract the reader's attention to the work. It can find application not only in fiction, but also in popular science. Personification is often used as one of the marketing techniques.
Stimulate the reader’s imagination, give him the opportunity to experience what he read more colorfully.

And a number of other tasks are set by personification. This is what personification is used for.

Where is personification used?

One of the genres where personification is especially active is myth. In the texts of ancient peoples, human qualities were attributed to plants, animals, seas and oceans. Using an example, it was much easier to explain the essence of things, the reasons for the origin of the universe and the appearance of living beings. There were many gods who were embodied in inanimate objects and animals and had the same character traits as people.

Personification is also used in a fairy tale. We must draw a line between myth and fairy tale. The first is perceived as reality. That is, they believe in personification, denying that it is just an artistic device. In the case of a fairy tale, everything is clear - the characters are fictional. It does not aim to explain incomprehensible things like the origin of life on Earth.

Personification can also be used in scientific literature, although its quantity is significantly less than in fiction. Most often it is used in the form of stable expressions such as “it is raining”, which are used everywhere. That is, personification in scientific texts is used unconsciously, without the goal of creating colorfulness. Personification manifests itself most actively in art, not science.

How to find an avatar?

It is not difficult to find personification in prose or poetry. To do this, you need to start from the definition. Personification is when not a person endowed with human qualities. Example - the sun has set. Thus, in the famous poem by A. S. Pushkin “By the Lukomorye there is a green oak” from the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” there are the following lines:

And day and night, the learned cat keeps walking around the chain. He goes to the right - he starts a song, to the left - he tells a fairy tale.

Obviously, a cat cannot sing or tell a story; only humans can do this. This technique is called personification or personification.

What is the difference between personification and allegory?

Very often one can confuse personification and. Well, indeed, in both cases certain qualities are embodied in specific objects or living beings. However, there is a difference between these concepts. Personification is a type of metaphor and is a simple associative artistic device.

Conclusions

Personification is a good tool that will help add expressiveness due to a successful comparison. It is used in a huge number of areas, from myths to scientific texts. This is a powerful technique that must be used carefully and in moderation.

Personification is a rhetorical figure that allows you to endow inanimate objects with properties, qualities and characteristics of a person. Another name for personification is personification. This literary device is based on the mechanism of projection, which helps to transfer certain human qualities to inanimate objects.

Increasingly, in literature one can find personification when describing nature and its phenomena. For example, in the construction “the wind whispers,” human properties are attributed to a natural phenomenon. In literature, this artistic technique helps to add color and expressiveness to speech.

How to find an avatar?

When analyzing the text, pay special attention to the person to whom certain properties and qualities are attributed. In personification, this object is not a person. It is an animal, a natural phenomenon, a plant, etc. It is this object that is endowed with human qualities, thanks to which the reader can even better imagine the object and its qualities.

What is personification used for?

What are the next challenges?

Giving the text expressiveness. Personification is used in fiction and scientific literature for a reason. Personification attracts the reader’s attention and helps to better understand the essence of the work.
Development of imagination. Comparing inanimate objects with a person helps to more colorfully imagine the picture being described and feel the lines read.
Education. It is much easier for children and adolescents to remember the image and properties of an object if it is endowed with the qualities of a person. For example, in fairy tales and fables there are many personifications, due to which children’s interest in the work and, consequently, their learning ability increases.

Where is impersonation used?

Personification can be found in fairy tales and myths. When describing a real or imagined event, the writer uses personification to give expressiveness to the text. In myths, personification helps to further explain the essence of what is read. That is why in myths there are so many examples of works where human qualities were attributed to oceans, seas, plants and inanimate objects.

Personification is also often found in other fiction. Thus, Tyutchev often used personification to better convey natural phenomena. For example, in his work there is the line “No matter how hot the noon breathes.” Here, humanity attributes a quality to noon, which gives every reason to call this phrase personification.

Personification does not appear very often in scientific literature. In such texts, personification is used as a stable expression.

Examples

Personification occurs in colloquial speech. For example, it is present in all familiar phrases: “it is raining”, “winter has come”, “clouds are running”, “the wind is howling”, “the blizzard is angry”, etc.

In folk poetry, personification occurs in the following lines:

"The trees tremble joyfully, Bathing in the blue sky"
"The trees sing, the waters sparkle"
"The blue sky is laughing"
“Silent sadness will be comforted”

Personification is a powerful artistic technique that allows you to give even a scientific text brightness and expressiveness. Moderate use of this speech flap helps to better understand the essence of what you read.

What does personification mean in literature? Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons: definitions, examples. Where are the means of artistic expression used?

Personification: definition of the concept, detailed description

Impersonation Examples

What is the personification

Personalization as a literary trope

Using personification in everyday life

Reincarnated personification

Allegory

Metonymy

Antonomasia

Synecdoche

The meaning of the word PERSONIFICATION in the Literary Encyclopedia

See also interpretations, synonyms, meanings of the word and what PERSONIFICATION is in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

Functions of personification in art

Where is personification used?

How to find an avatar?

What is the difference between personification and allegory?

Conclusions

How to find an avatar?

What is personification used for?

Where is impersonation used?

Examples