The literary device is personification. Personification - examples from literature

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Personification is a technique when the author endows inanimate objects with human properties.
To create imagery and give expressiveness to speech, authors resort to literary techniques; personification in literature is no exception.

The main purpose of the reception is to transfer human qualities and properties on inanimate object or a phenomenon of the surrounding reality.

Writers use these in their works. Personification is one of the types of metaphor, for example:

D The trees have woken up, the grass is whispering, fear has crept up.

Personification: the trees woke up as if alive

Thanks to the use of personifications in their presentations, the authors create an artistic image that is bright and unique.
This technique allows you to expand the possibilities of words when describing feelings and sensations. You can convey a picture of the world, express your attitude towards the depicted object.

The history of the appearance of personification

Where did personification come from in the Russian language? This was facilitated by animism (belief in the existence of spirits and souls).
Ancient people endowed inanimate objects with souls and living qualities. This is how they explained the world that surrounded them. Because they believed in mystical creatures and gods - a pictorial device was formed, like personification.

All poets are interested in the question of how to correctly apply techniques in artistic presentation, including when writing poetry?

If you are an aspiring poet, you need to learn how to use personification correctly. It should not just be in the text, but play a certain role.

A relevant example is present in Andrei Bitov’s novel “ Pushkin House" In the introductory part of the literary work, the author describes the wind that circles over St. Petersburg, the entire city is described from the point of view of the wind. In the prologue, the main character is the wind.

Impersonation Example expressed in Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s story “The Nose”. What is most interesting is that the main character’s nose is not only described by methods of personification, but also by methods of personification (a part of the body is endowed with human qualities). The main character's nose became a symbol of his doubles.

Sometimes authors make mistakes when using impersonation. They confuse it with allegories (expressions in a specific image) or anthropomorphisms(transfer of human mental properties to natural phenomena).

If in a work you give human qualities to any animal, then such a technique will not act as personification.
It is impossible to use allegory without the help of personification, but this is another figurative device.

What part of speech is personification?

Personification must bring the noun into action, animate and create an impression on it so that the inanimate object can exist like a person.

But in this case you cannot call impersonation simple verb is a part of speech. It has more functions than a verb. It gives speech brightness and expressiveness.
Using techniques in fictional writing allows writers to say more.

Personification - literary trope

In literature you can find colorful and expressive phrases that are used to animate objects and phenomena. In other sources there is another name for this literary device- personalization, that is, when an object and phenomenon are embodied by anthropomorphisms, metaphors or humanization.

Examples of personification in Russian

Both personalization and epithets with allegories contribute to the embellishment of phenomena. This creates a more impressive reality.

Poetry is rich in harmony, flight of thoughts, dreaminess, etc.
If you add a technique such as personalization to a sentence, it will sound completely different.
Personalization as a technique in a literary work appeared due to the fact that the authors sought to endow folklore characters from ancient greek myths heroism and greatness.

How to distinguish personification from metaphor?

Before you start drawing parallels between concepts, you need to remember what personification and metaphor are?

Metaphor is a word or phrase that is used in figuratively. It is based on comparing some objects with others.

For example:
Bee from a wax cell
Flies for field tribute

The metaphor here is the word “cell,” that is, the author meant a beehive.
Personification is the animation of inanimate objects or phenomena; the author endows inanimate objects or phenomena with the properties of living things.

For example:
Silent nature will be comforted
And playful joy will reflect

Joy cannot think, but the author endowed it with human properties, that is, he used such a literary device as personification.
Here the first conclusion suggests itself: metaphor - when the author compares a living object with a non-living one, and personification - non-living objects acquire the qualities of living things.

What is the difference between metaphor and personification?

Let's look at an example: diamond fountains are flying. Why is this a metaphor? The answer is simple, the author hid the comparison in this phrase. In this combination of words we can put a comparative conjunction ourselves, we get the following - fountains are like diamonds.

Sometimes a metaphor is called a hidden comparison, since it is based on a comparison, but the author does not formalize it with the help of a conjunction.

Using personification in conversation

All people use personification when speaking, but many people don't know about it. It is used so often that people have stopped noticing it. A striking example of personification in colloquial speech- finance sings romances (it is human nature to sing, and finance has been endowed with this property), so we got a personification.

Use a similar technique in colloquial speech - give it visual expressiveness, brightness and interest. Anyone who wants to impress their interlocutor uses this.

Despite this popularity, personification is more often found in artistic presentations. Authors from all over the world cannot ignore this artistic technique.

Personification and fiction

If we take a poem by any writer (no matter Russian or foreign), then on any page, in any work, we will encounter a lot of literary devices, including personifications.

If the artistic presentation is a story about nature, then describe natural phenomena the author will be using impersonation, example: the frost painted all the glass with patterns; Walking through the forest you can notice how the leaves whisper.

If the product is from love lyrics, then the authors use personification as abstract concept, For example: you could hear love singing; their joy rang, melancholy ate him from the inside.
Political or social lyrics also include personifications: and the homeland is our mother; With the end of the war, the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Personification and anthropomorphisms

Personification is a simple figurative device. And it’s not difficult to define it. The main thing is to be able to distinguish it from other techniques, namely anthropomorphism, because they are similar.

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 of over-starched 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 of the use own name in the meaning of a common noun. Hercules is sometimes figuratively called strong man. The use of figurative meaning words: Don Quixote, Don Juan, Lovelace, etc.

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 the rethinking of names, still retains its expressive power 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 (The moon makes its way through the wavy fogs, it pours a sad light 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.)].

Let's look for an example of personification in poetry. We read from Sergei Yesenin:

Small forest. The steppe and the distance.

Moonlight to all ends.

Suddenly they started crying again

Spill bells.

The bells did not ring, but began to sob, as women sob when they are in grief.

Personification helps a writer or poet create an artistic image, bright and unique, expands the possibilities of the word in conveying a picture of the world, sensations and feelings, in expressing one’s attitude towards what is depicted.

2.6 Hyperbole (trope) – figurative expression, consisting of exaggeration of the size, strength, beauty, meaning of the described: The sunset glowed with one hundred and forty suns (V. Mayakovsky). They can be individually authored and general language ( at the edge of the earth).

In linguistics in words "hyperbola" called excessive exaggeration of any qualities or properties, phenomena, processes in order to create a bright and impressive image, for example:

rivers of blood, you’re always late, mountains of corpses, haven’t seen each other for a hundred years, scare me to death, said a hundred times, a million apologies, a sea of ripened wheat, I’ve been waiting for an eternity, I’ve been standing all day, no matter how wet it is, my house is a thousand kilometers away, I’m always late.

Hyperbole is often found in oral folk art, for example, in epics: Ilya Muromets picks up “an iron shalyga that weighed exactly one hundred pounds”,

No matter where you wave, the street will fall,

And he’ll wave it back - the side streets...

In fiction, writers use hyperbole to enhance expressiveness, create a figurative characterization of the hero, and a vivid and individual idea of him. Using a hyperbole reveals author's attitude to the character, is created general impression from the statement.

2.7 Litotes (trope)- this is a figurative expression, turnover, stylistic figure, (trope) which contains an artistic understatement of the magnitude, strength of meaning of the depicted object or phenomenon. Litotes in this sense is the opposite of hyperbole, which is why it is also called inverse hyperbole. In litotes based on any common feature two dissimilar phenomena are compared, but this feature is presented in the phenomenon-means of comparison in a significantly to a lesser extent, rather than in the phenomenon-object of comparison. .

N.V. Gogol often turned to litotes. For example, in the story “Nevsky Prospekt”: “such a small mouth that it can’t miss more than two pieces”, “a waist no thicker than the neck of a bottle.”

Litotes are especially often used in poetry. Almost no poet has avoided this stylistic device. After all, litotes is a means of expression.

In poetry this stylistic figure appears as:

1. Denial of the opposite.

An example from a poem by Nikolai Zabolotsky goes like this:

"ABOUT, I'm not bad lived in this world!

2. As an understatement of the subject.

Nekrasovskaya litotes. Example:

“In big boots, in a short sheepskin coat,
In big mittens... and from the nail itself!»

"My Lizochek is so small,
So small
Which of the wings mosquitoes
I made two shirtfronts for myself."

2.8 Allegory (trope)– a conventional depiction of abstract ideas (concepts) through a specific artistic image or dialogue.

As a trope, allegory is used in fables, parables, and morality tales; V fine arts is expressed by certain attributes. Allegory arose on the basis of mythology, was reflected in folklore, and was developed in the fine arts. The main way of depicting allegory is the generalization of human concepts; ideas are revealed in the images and behavior of animals, plants, mythological and fairy tale characters, inanimate objects that take on figurative meaning

Example: allegory of “justice” - Themis (woman with scales).

2.9 Paraphrase (trope)– a descriptive expression used instead of a particular word, for example: King of beasts (lion), city on the Neva (St. Petersburg). General linguistic periphrases usually acquire a stable character. Many of them are constantly used in the language of newspapers: people in white coats (doctors). Stylistically, a distinction is made between figurative and non-figurative periphrases, cf.: The sun of Russian poetry and the author of “Eugene Onegin” (V.G. Belinsky).Euphemism – variety paraphrases. Euphemisms replace words whose use by the speaker or writer for some reason seems undesirable.

2.10 Irony (trope)- the use of a word in the opposite sense to the literal one: Where are you, smart one, wandering from, head? (I. Krylov). Clever mind - addressing a donkey. Irony is subtle mockery expressed in the form of praise or positive characteristics subject.

Classic of Russian literature N.V. Gogol in the poem "Dead Souls" with a completely serious look, he talks about the bribe-taking police chief:

The police chief was in some way a father and benefactor in the city. He was among the citizensjust like a relative in the family, and in the shops and in Gostiny Dvor visited howin your own pantry.

2.11 Antithesis (trope) – this is turnover poetic speech, in which, to enhance expressiveness, sharplydirectly opposite phenomena, concepts, thoughts are opposed:The rich and the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the evil sleep (A. Chekhov).

The lexical basis of antithesis is the presence of antonyms, which is clearly manifested in proverbs and sayings:

It's easy to make friends, hard to separate.

A smart person will teach you, a fool will get bored.

Learning is light and ignorance is darkness.

The rich feast on weekdays, but the poor grieve on holidays.

They came together: a wave and a stone,

Poetry and prose, ice and fire

Not so different from each other.

(A.S. Pushkin).

2.12 Oxymoron (trope) – stylistic figure or stylistic error - a combination of words with the opposite meaning, that is, a combination of the incongruous. An oxymoron is characterized by the deliberate use of contradiction to create a stylistic effect: living corpse, large little things.

2.13 Antonomasia - trope, expressed in the replacement of a name or name by an indication of some significant feature of an object or its relationship to something.

An example of a replacement for an essential feature of an item: “ great poet" instead of "Pushkin". An example of a replacement to indicate a relationship: “the author of War and Peace” instead of “Tolstoy”; "Son of Peleus" instead of "Achilles".

In addition, antonomasia is also called a replacement common noun proper (using a proper name as a common noun). Examples: “Aesculapius” instead of “doctor”. “We sang songs, ate dawns // and the meat of future times, and you - // with unnecessary cunning in your eyes // solid dark Semyonovs,” N. N. Aseev.

Antonomasia in both cases is special kind metonymy.

2.14 Gradation (art. figure) – arrangement of words in ascending or descending order of importance: I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry (S. Yesenin).

A striking example of ascending gradation are lines from the famous "Tales of the Golden fish" A.S. Pushkin:

I don't want to be a black peasant girl

I want to be a pillar noblewoman;

I don't want to be a pillar noblewoman,

But I want to be a free queen;

I don't want to be a free queen,

But I want to be the mistress of the sea.

An increase in the expressiveness of the statement, increased expressiveness with the help of climax is observed in the lines of A.P. Chekhov:

The traveler jumps up to him and, raising his fists, is ready to tear him to pieces, destroy him, crush him.

2.15 Inversion (staff figure) – arrangement of words that violates the usual word order:

The lonely sail is white

In the blue sea fog (M. Lermontov).

“Everyone was ready to start a new battle tomorrow” (M. Lermontov)

“I am restoring Russia from dampness and sleepers” (M. Tsvetaeva)

“In the two years we’ve lived here, yesterday has turned into tomorrow.”

Inversion allows you to place emphasis on a specific word or phrase; arranges semantic loads in the sentence; in a poetic text, inversion sets the rhythm; in prose, using inversion, you can place logical stresses; inversion conveys the author’s attitude towards the characters and emotional condition author; inversion enlivens the text and makes it more readable and interesting. To fully understand what inversion is, you need to read more classic literature. In addition to inversion, in the texts of great writers you can find many other interesting stylistic devices that make speech brighter and which our Russian language is so rich in.

2.16 Ellipsis (st. figure)- omission for stylistic purposes of any implied member of the sentence. Ellipsis gives speech a rapid, dynamic character: We are cities - to ashes, villages - to dust (V. Zhukovsky). It is used by authors to force readers to independently guess a deliberately omitted phrase or individual word.

“...Walk at the wedding, because it’s the last one!” In these lines belonging to Tvardovsky, the word “what” is missing. “Her life was longer than mine.” And here there is an omission minor member sentence, additional, which is expressed by a noun in the nominative case.

2.17 Parallelism (art. figure)– the same syntactic structure of neighboring sentences, the location of similar parts of the sentence in them.

Your mind is as deep as the sea.

Your spirit is as high as the mountains (V. Bryusov).

What is he looking for in a distant land? What did he throw in his native land? (M. Lermontov).

2.18 Anaphora(unity of command) ( Art. figure) – repetition of the same words or phrases at the beginning of sentences:

I'm standing at the high doors.

I am following your work (M. Svetlov).

2.19 Epiphora (art. figure) – repetition of individual words or phrases at the end of sentences: I would like to know why I am a titular councilor? Why titular adviser? (N. Gogol).

2.20 Asyndeton (non-union) (senior figure)– absence of alliances between homogeneous members or parts complex sentence: Swede, Russian - stabs, chops, cuts (A. Pushkin).

The booths and women flash past,
Boys, benches, lanterns,
Palaces, gardens, monasteries,
Bukharians, sleighs, vegetable gardens,
Merchants, shacks, men,
Boulevards, towers, Cossacks,
Pharmacies, fashion stores,
Balconies, lions on the gates
And flocks of jackdaws on crosses.

A. S. Pushkin

2.21 Polysyndeton (multi-union) (senior figure) – repetition of the same conjunction with homogeneous members or parts of a complex sentence: And it’s boring, and sad, and there’s no one to give a hand in a moment of spiritual adversity (M. Lermontov).

2.22 Rhetorical question (art. figure)– using the interrogative form to express thoughts more clearly. Sometimes they say that a question that does not require an answer can be considered rhetorical, that is, a statement formulated for poetics in the form of a question. In fact, the answer to the rhetorical question is so obvious that it can be read “between the letters” of the question: Do you love theater as much as I do? (V. Belinsky).“Oh Volga, my cradle, has anyone loved you like I do?” (Nekrasov)

“What Russian doesn’t like driving fast?” (Gogol)

2.23 Rhetorical exclamation (art. figure)- an emotionally charged sentence in which emotions are necessarily expressed intonationally and a particular concept is stated in it. The rhetorical exclamation sounds with poetic inspiration and elation:

“Yes, to love as our blood loves

None of you have been in love for a long time!” (A. Blok);

“Here it is, stupid happiness

With white windows to the garden! (S. Yesenin);

"Fading Power!

Die like that!

Until the end of my sweetheart's lips

I would like to kiss..." (S. Yesenin)

2.24 Rhetorical appeal (art. figure)- an emphasized appeal to someone or something, intended to express the author’s attitude towards a particular object, to give a characteristic: “I love you, my damask dagger, a bright and cold comrade...” (M.Yu. Lermontov) This stylistic figure contains expression, increasing the tension of speech: “Oh, you, whose letters are many, many in my briefcase on the bank...” (N. Nekrasov) or “Flowers, love, village, idleness, field! I am devoted to you with my soul" (A.S. Pushkin)

By shape rhetorical appeal wears conditional character. It imparts the necessary author’s intonation to poetic speech: solemnity, pathos, cordiality, irony, etc.:

“The stars are clear, the stars are high!

What do you keep inside yourself, what do you hide?

Stars that conceal deep thoughts,

By what power do you captivate the soul? (S. Yesenin)

2.25 Parcellation- a special division of an utterance in which incomplete sentences, following the main one: And all the Kuznetsky Most and the eternal French, Where fashion comes to us from, and authors, and muses: Destroyers of pockets and hearts! When will the creator deliver us from their hats! caps! and Shpilek! and pins!.. A.S. Griboedov. Woe from the mind.

3. Functions of tropes in the text

The most important role V artistic speech tropes play - words and expressions used not in a literal, but in a figurative meaning. Tropes create so-called allegorical imagery in a work, when an image arises from the rapprochement of one object or phenomenon with another.

This is the most general function of all tropes - to reflect in the structure of the image a person’s ability to think by analogy, to embody, in the words of the poet, “the bringing together of distant things,” thus emphasizing the unity and integrity of the world around us. At the same time, the artistic effect of the trope, as a rule, is stronger, the farther the phenomena being brought together are separated from each other: such, for example, is Tyutchev’s likening of lightning to “deaf-mute demons.” Using this trope as an example, one can trace another function of allegorical imagery: to reveal the essence of a particular phenomenon, usually hidden, the potential poetic meaning contained in it. So, in our example, Tyutchev, with the help of a rather complex and non-obvious trope, forces the reader to take a closer look at such an ordinary phenomenon as lightning, to see it from an unexpected side. For all its complexity, the trope is very accurate: indeed, it is natural to describe the reflections of lightning without thunder with the epithet “deaf and mute.”

The use of tropes in artistic speech creates new combinations of words with new meanings, enriches speech with new shades of meaning, imparts to the defined phenomenon the meaning, shade of meaning that the speaker needs, conveys his assessment of the phenomenon, that is, plays on the subjective component.
And aesthetic is a function of creativity in general, trope is the main way of creating artistic image, and the artist image is the main thing aesthetic category. tropes make natural language a poetic language, giving it the opportunity to perform its main function poetic language- aesthetic.

For literary analysis (as opposed to linguistic analysis), it is extremely important to distinguish between general linguistic tropes, that is, those that are included in the language system and are used by all its speakers, and authorial tropes, which are used once by a writer or poet in a given specific situation. Only the tropes of the second group are capable of creating poetic imagery, while the first group - general linguistic tropes - for obvious reasons should not be taken into account in the analysis. The fact is that common language tropes, due to frequent and widespread use, seem to be “erased”, lose their figurative expressiveness, are perceived as a cliche and, because of this, are functionally identical to vocabulary without any figurative meaning.

Conclusion

In conclusion of this work, I would like to note that the resources of expressive means in language are inexhaustible and the means of language, such as figures and tropes, that make our speech beautiful and expressive are unusually diverse. And knowing them is very useful, especially for writers and poets who live by creativity, because... the use of figures and tropes leaves an imprint of individuality on the author's style.

The successful use of tropes and figures raises the bar for the perception of the text, while the unsuccessful use of such techniques, on the contrary, lowers it. A text with an unsuccessful use of expressive techniques defines the writer as an unintelligent person, and this is the most severe by-product. It is interesting that when reading the works of young writers, who, as a rule, are stylistically imperfect, one can draw a conclusion about the level of the author’s intelligence: some - without realizing that they do not know how to use various techniques expressiveness, nevertheless oversaturate the text with them, and it becomes impossible to read it; others, realizing that they cannot cope with the masterful use of tropes and figures, make the text neutral from this point of view, using the so-called “telegraphic style”. This is also not always appropriate, but it is perceived better than a heap of expressive techniques used ineptly. The neutral text, almost devoid of expressive techniques, looks meager, which is quite obvious, but at least it does not characterize the author as a fool. Only a real master can skillfully use tropes and figures in his creations, and brilliant authors can even be “recognized” by their individual writing style.

Expressive devices such as tropes and figures should surprise the reader. Effectiveness is achieved only in cases where the reader is shocked by what he read and impressed by the pictures and images of the work. Literary works Russian poets and writers are rightfully famous for their genius and this is not last role play means of expression Russian language, which our Russian writers very skillfully use in their works.

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Personification

PERSONIFICATION (or personification) is 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 long/rushed towards the sea against the storm,/not having overcome their violent foolishness.../and it became unable to argue.../The weather became even more ferocious,/the Neva swelled and roared... /and suddenly, like a frenzied beast,/the city was rushed.../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: “Ride to the Island of Love”, (St. Petersburg), 1730.
O. is essentially, therefore, a transference of signs of animation onto a concept or phenomenon and represents it as such. arr. type of metaphor (see). Trails.

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Personification

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

Personification

PERSONALIZATION Also personification(lat. persona and facio), prosopopoeia(Greek Προσωποποια), - a stylistic term denoting the image of an inanimate or abstract object as if animate. The question of how much personification corresponds to the poet’s actual view of things goes beyond stylistics and relates to the field of worldview in general. Where the poet himself believes in the animation of the object he depicts, one should not even talk about personification as a phenomenon of style, for it is then associated not with the techniques of depiction, but with a certain, animistic worldview and attitude. The object is already perceived as animate and is depicted as such. It is in this sense that many personifications in folk poetry must be interpreted, when they relate not to techniques, not to a form of expression, but to the animated object itself, i.e., to the content of the work. This is especially evident in any mythological work. On the contrary, personification, as a phenomenon of style, appears in those cases when it is used as allegory, i.e., as an image of an object that stylistically transforms his. Of course, it is not always possible to establish with accuracy what order of personification we are dealing with, just as in a metaphor it is difficult to find objective signs of the degree of its real imagery. Therefore, stylistic research often cannot do without attracting data from the field of individual poetic worldview. Thus, many personifications of natural phenomena in Goethe, Tyutchev, and the German romantics should not be considered as a stylistic device, but as essential features of their general view of the world. These, for example, are Tyutchev’s personifications of the wind - “What are you howling about, night wind, Why are you complaining so madly?”; a thunderstorm that “will suddenly and recklessly run into the oak grove”; lightning, which “like deaf-mute demons, conduct a conversation among themselves”; trees that “joyfully tremble, bathing in the blue sky” - for all this is consistent with the poet’s attitude towards nature, which he himself expressed in a special poem: “Not what you think, nature is not a cast, not a soulless face. It has a soul, it has freedom, it has love, it has language,” etc. On the contrary, in such works as fables, parables, and different types allegories (see), we should talk about personification as an artistic device. Compare, for example, Krylov’s fables about inanimate objects (“Cauldron and Pot”, “Guns and Sails”, etc.)

Especially in cases of the so-called. incomplete personification, it is common stylistic device, which is used not only by poetry, but also by everyday speech. Here we are dealing, strictly speaking, only with individual elements of personification, which have often become so commonplace in speech that their direct meaning is no longer felt. Wed, for example, such expressions as: “The sun rises, sets”, “the train is coming”, “streams are running”, “the moan of the wind”, “the howling of the motel”, etc. Most of these expressions are one of the types of metaphor , and the same should be said about their meaning in poetic style as about metaphor (see). Examples of stylistic personifications: “The air does not want to overcome its drowsiness... The stars of the night, Like accusatory eyes, look at him mockingly. And the poplars, crowded in a row, shaking their heads low, like judges whispering among themselves” (Pushkin); “Nozdryov had long ago stopped whistling, but there was one pipe in the barrel organ, a very lively one, that did not want to calm down, and for a long time afterwards it whistled alone” (Gogol); “A bird will fly out - my longing, sit on a branch and begin to sing” (Akhmatova). The depiction of plants and animals in the image of people, as found in fairy tales, fables, and animal epics, can also be considered a type of personification.

A. Petrovsky. Literary Encyclopedia: Dictionary literary terms: In 2 volumes / Edited by N. Brodsky, A. Lavretsky, E. Lunin, V. Lvov-Rogachevsky, M. Rozanov, V. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky. - M.; L.: Publishing house L. D. Frenkel, 1925

Synonyms:

See what “Impersonation” is in other dictionaries:

Churches. Statue of Strasbourg Cathedral Personification (personification, prosopopoeia) of the trope ... Wikipedia

Prosopopoeia, embodiment, personification, anthropomorphism, animation, humanization, metaphor, representation, epitome, expression Dictionary of Russian synonyms. personification 1. humanization, animation, personification 2. see embodiment ... Synonym dictionary

PERSONIFICATION, personification, cf. (book). 1. units only Action under Ch. personify personify. The personification of the forces of nature among primitive peoples. 2. what. The embodiment of some elemental force, a natural phenomenon in the form of a living creature. God… … Dictionary Ushakova

Personification- PERSONIFICATION is also personification (Latin: Persona and facio), prosopopoeia (Greek: Προσωποποια), a stylistic term denoting the depiction of an inanimate or abstract object as animate. The question is how much personification... ... Dictionary of literary terms

Personification, the property inherent in mythopoetic consciousness of transferring to inanimate things and phenomena the traits of living beings: human (anthropomorphism, anthropopathism) or animals (zoomorphism), as well as endowing animals with human qualities. IN … Encyclopedia of Mythology

- (prosopopoeia) a type of metaphor, transferring the properties of animate objects to inanimate ones (Her nurse is silence..., A. A. Blok) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

PERSONIFICATION, I, cf. 1. see personify. 2. what. About a living being: the embodiment of what n. features, properties. Plyushkin O. stinginess. O. kindness. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

personification- PERSONIFY1, embodiment PERSONIFIED, embodied PERSONIFY / PERSONIFY, embody / embody PERSONIFY2, spiritualization, animation, humanization, personification, book. anthropomorphism ANIMATION,... ... Dictionary-thesaurus of synonyms of Russian speech

personification- impersonation Occurs when an object pretends to be someone or something. [Cryptographic Dictionary by Karen Isaguliev www.racal.ru ] Topics information Technology in general Synonyms impersonation EN impersonation ... Technical Translator's Guide

I; Wed 1. to Personify (1 digit). and Personify. O. forces of nature. 2. Image of which letter. elemental force, a natural phenomenon in the form of a living being. Dove o. peace. 3. what. The embodiment of an idea, concept, etc. properties, qualities in human... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

The personification of history. Issue 2. Rich people, Daria Prikhodko. In the collection “Personification of History. Rich Men" included twelve biographical essays, the heroes of which were: one of the richest residents of the United States...

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Personification is one of the artistic techniques in literature.

Together with its “brothers” - , - it serves the same purpose. Helps to saturate the work with vivid images, making it more colorful and interesting.

But unlike the others, his easiest to recognize and understand what it is.

What is it with examples

Here's an example famous poem Feta using personifications:

The pond cannot dream, and the poplar cannot slumber. Just like acacia cannot “ask”. All this artistic techniques, reviving the inanimate and bringing beauty to a literary work.

Let's leave literature aside for a moment and give an example from our usual vocabulary. Think about how often you yourself say or hear:

The weather whispers
The clock is running/slow
The trumpet is calling
Things are looking up

From the point of view of literal understanding, these phrases are meaningless and incorrect. After all, finances cannot sing, the weather cannot whisper, or the trumpet can call - they don’t have a mouth for this. And it’s hard to imagine a watch with legs.

All these Verbs apply only to living beings, whether human or animal. But not to inanimate objects. But this is the meaning of PERSONIFICATION.

This word itself came into Russian from Latin. True, there you can more often find - personification, formed from two parts - persona (face) and facio (I do).

Are traced and historical roots- in ancient times, people often attributed human properties to the forces of nature and endowed any object with them. And it helped them understand better the world. From this hoax a literary device was born.

A few more examples for clarity:

I would call this technique a little differently - animation. This makes it easier to understand its meaning.

Personification in Russian folklore

Since we are talking about ancient times, we must definitely mention that many personifications can be found in Russian folk proverbs and sayings. And most importantly, we know them we constantly use and perceive it as something absolutely normal:

The word is not a sparrow, if it flies out, you won’t catch it
FOUND A SPIT ON A STONE
If the mountain DOES NOT GO to Mohammed
The master's work is AFRAID

And another bright one using personification - here it is as unambiguous as possible:

Like at our market
Pies are baked with eyes.
They bake them - they RUN,
They eat them - they LOOK!

Even more avatars can be found. It's full of all sorts of inanimate objects that can move, talk and generally behave as if they were alive.

Well, for example, you can remember the flying carpet, Baba Yaga’s stupa, the stove that helped children escape from the Swan Geese. Yes, even Moidodyr, Nutcracker, Pinocchio and Scarecrow with Tin Woodman will fit here. Surely you will remember a lot of other examples where an inanimate object suddenly becomes alive.

IN " The Tale of Igor's Campaign"The following examples of impersonation can be found:

And how many beautiful personifications does Alexander Sergeevich have? Pushkin. It is enough to consider “The Tale of dead princess" Do you remember who Tsarevich Elisha asked for help? By the wind, the month, the sun.

Our sunshine is our light! You walk
All year round in the sky, you drive
Winter with warm spring,
YOU SEE all of us below you.
A month, a month, my friend,
Gilded horn!
You RISE in deep darkness,
Chubby, bright-eyed,
And, your custom is LOVE,
The stars are LOOKING at you.
Wind, wind! You are powerful
You DRIVE flocks of clouds,
You stir the blue sea
Everywhere you blow in the open air,
DON'T BE AFRAID OF ANYONE
Except God alone.

You see, here they are all endowed with human properties. And after the question “Have you seen the princess?” they also answer Elisha. That is, they behave as if they were absolutely alive.

Examples of personifications in literature

And it is no coincidence that we mentioned Pushkin. In the literature, a similar technique most often found in poetry. After all, this one is more melodic, dreamy, in it, like nowhere else, flights of thought and various images are welcomed.

For example, Fedor Tyutcheva Entire mountains come to life with just one word:

Through the azure darkness of the night
The snowy Alps LOOK;
Their eyes are dead
They reek of icy horror.

Or the famous “Sail” by M.Yu. Lermontov. After all, the poem doesn’t say a word that people are steering the boat. She's on her own - main character of the entire poem, who lives, fights the waves and moves towards one goal known to him:

The lonely sail turns white
In the blue sea fog!..
What is he looking for in a distant country?
What did he throw in his native land?

Yesenin In his work, he generally perceived nature as a living organism. And therefore in his works one can often find personifications.

For example, “The golden grove SAID”, “Winter SINGS, AUCKS, the shaggy forest SUCKS”, “The hemp tree DREAMS about all the departed”, “The moon LAUGHED like a clown.” And in the poem “With Good morning” and completely personification upon personification:

The golden stars fell asleep,
The mirror of the backwater shook...
The sleepy birch trees SMILED,
Silk braids are disheveled...
The fence is overgrown with nettles
DRESSED with bright mother-of-pearl
And swaying, WHISPERS playfully:
- Good morning!

In prose you can also find vivid examples personifications.

The eyes, still shining with tears, LAUGHED boldly and happily. (Turgenev)
The pot is ANGRY and MUMBLING on the fire. (Paustovsky)

But still, prose always looks poorer than poetry. Therefore, all the most vivid images and techniques should be sought precisely in poems.

Personification in advertising

We can also see examples of personification every day on TV screens or street banners. Advertisers have long begun to use vivid images and "revive" that product that needs to be sold.

Everyone is familiar with the series of M&M’s dragee commercials where the main characters are Yellow and Red candies.

And many have heard similar slogans:

“Tefal always THINKS about us!” (Tefal frying pans);
“SPEAK your body language” (Always pads);
“CARE FOR THE BEAUTY OF YOUR LEGS” (Sanpellegrino tights);
“WISHES you an autumn without flu and colds” (drug Anaferon);
“Regular mascara will never go that far” (L`Oreal mascara).

Conclusion

By the way, if you noticed, then the verb is always used as personification. This distinguishing feature this literary device. It is the verb that “animates” a specific noun, endowing it with certain properties.

But at the same time, this is not a simple verb that we use in our speech (he walks, he sees, he rejoices, etc.). In this case, it also adds to the text expressiveness and brightness.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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