PERSONIFICATION. In RHETORIC, discourse in which animals, plants, elements of nature, and abstract ideas are given human attributes: ‘bask in Heaven's blue smile’ (Shelley). It has been regarded as both a figure in its own right and as an aspect of METAPHOR in which non-human is identified with human: ‘Life can play some nasty tricks’. It is common in VERSE: ‘Slowly, silently, now the moon / Walks the night in her silver shoon’ ( Walter de la Mare, ‘Silver’, 1913). The representation of the moon as female is similar to the application of she to ships, cats, countries, and certain abstractions: ‘He seems to want to destroy poetry as poetry, to exclude her as a vehicle of communication’ ( Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato, 1963).

per·son·i·fi·ca·tion / pərˌsänəfiˈkāshən/ • n. the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. ∎  a figure intended to represent an abstract quality: the design on the franc shows Marianne, the personification of the French republic. ∎  [in sing.] a person, animal, or object regarded as representing or embodying a quality, concept, or thing: he was the very personification of British pluck and diplomacy.

personification. Representation of a human figure with attributes to suggest an abstraction, such as Hope with Anchor. Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1593) was an important source-book for personification.

Bibliography

Lampugnani (ed.) & Dinsmoor (1986)