The Personification

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Last updated: October 29, 2017 at 22:29 pm

person photoThe personification is a literary device which gives human qualities to things that are not human. These non-human things be either living things, such as plants and animals, or non-living, such as inanimate objects, rivers, the wind etc.

The word personification comes from:

Person, meaning “a human being” and “ification” meaning to make.

So, with the personification, we make (something) like a human being.

Some good examples of the personification include:

The wind whispered through the grass.

The flowers smiled at me.

The trees waved goodbye as the car drove away.

The flowers danced in the wind.

But the personification goes much further than that. For example, we can personify the country of USA when we refer to it as Uncle Sam.

A poem which makes very good and colorful use of the personification is “Beclouded” by Emily Dickinson.

I’ll be updating this page often with more information and examples of the personification. Be sure to sign up to my newsletter in order to receive the latest updates.

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