What is personification in literature. Personification - what is it? Examples of the use of metaphor in literary speech

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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

This literary method is often 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 many more functions, transforming speech from ordinary into bright and mysterious, into unusual and at the same time capable of telling about many 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. That this is a 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 for a long time of their existence have already become an integral part of ordinary 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 it is?

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.

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons - all these are means of artistic expression that are actively used in the Russian literary language. There is a huge variety of them. They are necessary in order to make the language bright and expressive, enhance artistic images, and attract the reader’s attention to the idea that the author wants to convey.

What are the means of artistic expression?

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons refer to different groups means of artistic expression.

Linguistic scientists distinguish between sound or phonetic visual arts. Lexical are those that are associated with a specific word, that is, a lexeme. If means of expression covers a phrase or a whole sentence, then it is syntactic.

Separately, they also consider phraseological means (they are based on phraseological units), tropes (special figures of speech used in a figurative meaning).

Where are the means of artistic expression used?

It is worth noting that the means of artistic expression are used not only in literature, but also in various spheres of communication.

Most often, epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons can be found, of course, in artistic and journalistic speech. They are also present in colloquial and even scientific styles. They are playing huge role, as they help the author to realize his artistic concept, his image. They are also useful for the reader. With their help, he can penetrate into the secret world of the creator of the work, better understand and delve into the author's intention.

Epithet

Epithets in poetry are one of the most common literary devices. It is surprising that an epithet can be not only an adjective, but also an adverb, noun and even a numeral (a common example is second Life).

Most literary scholars consider the epithet as one of the main techniques in poetic creativity, decorating poetic speech.

If we turn to the origins of this word, it comes from the ancient Greek concept, literally meaning “attached”. That is, it is an addition to the main word, the main function of which is to make the main idea clearer and more expressive. Most often, the epithet comes before the main word or expression.

Like all means of artistic expression, epithets developed from one literary era to another. So, in folklore, that is, in folk art, the role of epithets in the text is very large. They describe the properties of objects or phenomena. Make them stand out key features, while extremely rarely addressing the emotional component.

Later, the role of epithets in literature changes. It is expanding significantly. This means of artistic expression is given new properties and filled with functions that were not previously inherent in it. This becomes especially noticeable among the poets of the Silver Age.

Nowadays, especially in postmodern literary works, the structure of the epithet has become even more complex. The semantic content of this trope has also increased, leading to surprisingly expressive techniques. For example: the diapers were golden.

Function of epithets

The definitions epithet, metaphor, personification, comparison come down to one thing - all these are artistic means that give prominence and expressiveness to our speech. Both literary and colloquial. The special function of the epithet is also strong emotionality.

These means of artistic expression, and especially epithets, help readers or listeners to visualize what the author is talking or writing about, to understand how he relates to this subject.

Epithets serve to realistically recreate a historical era, a certain social group or people. With their help, we can imagine how these people spoke, what words colored their speech.

What is a metaphor?

Translated from ancient Greek, metaphor is “transfer of meaning.” This characterizes this concept as well as possible.

A metaphor can be either a separate word or a whole expression that is used by the author in a figurative sense. This means of artistic expression is based on a comparison of an object that has not yet been named with some other one based on their common feature.

Unlike most other literary terms, metaphor has a specific author. This is a famous philosopher Ancient Greece- Aristotle. The initial birth of this term is associated with Aristotle’s ideas about art as a method of imitating life.

Moreover, the metaphors that Aristotle used are almost impossible to distinguish from literary exaggeration (hyperbole), ordinary comparison or personification. He understood metaphor much more broadly than modern literary scholars.

Examples of the use of metaphor in literary speech

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons are actively used in works of art. Moreover, for many authors, metaphors become an aesthetic end in themselves, sometimes completely displacing the original meaning of the word.

As an example, literary researchers cite the famous English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. For him, what is often important is not the everyday original meaning of a particular statement, but the metaphorical meaning it acquires, a new unexpected meaning.

For those readers and researchers who were brought up on the Aristotelian understanding of the principles of literature, this was unusual and even incomprehensible. So, on this basis Leo Tolstoy did not recognize Shakespeare’s poetry. His point of view Russia XIX century, many readers of the English playwright adhered to.

At the same time, with the development of literature, metaphor begins not only to reflect, but also to create the life around us. A striking example from classical Russian literature is Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's story "The Nose". The nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalev, who went on his own journey around St. Petersburg, is not only a hyperbole, personification and comparison, but also a metaphor that gives this image a new unexpected meaning.

An illustrative example is the futurist poets who worked in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Their main goal was to distance the metaphor as far as possible from its original meaning. Vladimir Mayakovsky often used such techniques. An example is the title of his poem “A Cloud in Pants.”

Moreover, after the October Revolution, metaphors began to be used much less frequently. Soviet poets and writers strived for clarity and straightforwardness, so the need to use words and expressions in a figurative sense disappeared.

Although it is impossible to imagine a work of art, even by Soviet authors, without metaphor. Almost everyone uses metaphor words. In Arkady Gaidar's "The Fate of a Drummer" you can find the following phrase - "So we parted ways. The stomping has stopped, and the field is empty."

In Soviet poetry of the 70s, Konstantin Kedrov introduced the concept of “meta-metaphor” or, as it is also called, “metaphor squared”. The metaphor has a new one distinguishing feature- she is constantly involved in development literary language. As well as speech and culture itself as a whole.

For this purpose, metaphors are constantly used when talking about latest sources knowledge and information, use it to describe modern achievements of mankind in science and technology.

Personification

In order to understand what personification is in literature, let us turn to the origin of this concept. Like most literary terms, it has its roots in ancient greek language. Literally translated it means “face” and “do”. With the help of this literary device, natural forces and phenomena, inanimate objects acquire properties and signs inherent in humans. It’s as if they are animated by the author. For example, they can be given the properties of the human psyche.

Such techniques are often used not only in modern fiction, but also in mythology, and religion, in magic and cults. Personification was a key means of artistic expression in legends and parables, which explained to ancient people how the world works and what is behind natural phenomena. They were animated, endowed with human qualities, associated with gods or supermen. This made it easier for ancient man to accept and understand the reality around him.

Examples of avatars

Examples of specific texts will help us understand what personification is in literature. Thus, in a Russian folk song, the author claims that "bast is girded with grief".

With the help of personification, a special worldview appears. It is characterized by an unscientific understanding of natural phenomena. When, for example, thunder grumbles like an old man, or the sun is perceived not as an inanimate cosmic object, but as a specific god named Helios.

Comparison

In order to understand the main modern means artistic expression, it is important to understand what comparison is in literature. Examples will help us with this. At Zabolotsky we meet: "He used to be loud, like a bird"or Pushkin: "He ran faster than a horse".

Very often comparisons are used in Russian folk art. So we clearly see that this is a trope in which one object or phenomenon is likened to another on the basis of some characteristic common to them. The purpose of comparison is to find new and important properties for the subject of artistic expression.

Metaphor, epithets, comparisons, personifications serve a similar purpose. The table, which presents all these concepts, helps to clearly understand how they differ from each other.

Types of comparisons

For a detailed understanding, let us consider what comparison is in literature, examples and varieties of this trope.

It can be used in the form of a comparative phrase: the man is as stupid as a pig.

There are non-union comparisons: My home is my castle.

Comparisons are often formed by using a noun in the instrumental case. Classic example: he walks like a nog.

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 is an example of Fet's famous poem using personifications:

The pond cannot dream, and the poplar cannot slumber. Just like acacia cannot “ask”. All these are artistic techniques that revive the inanimate and bring 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).

Historical roots can also be traced - 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, it is necessary to 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. Just consider “The Tale of the 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 disturb 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 “Good Morning” there is 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 of personification.

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 striking images and techniques should be sought 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 is a distinctive feature of 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

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. Due to the fact that 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, personification cannot be called a simple verb - it 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, another name for this literary technique is 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 literary work appeared due to the fact that the authors sought to endow folklore characters from ancient Greek myths with 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 a figurative sense. 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 ourselves comparative union, 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.

To use a similar technique in colloquial speech is to give it figurative 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 an 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.

Even in ancient times, people endowed surrounding objects and phenomena with human characteristics. For example, the earth was called mother, and rain was compared to tears. Over time, the desire to humanize inanimate objects has disappeared, but in literature and in conversation we still encounter these figures of speech. This figurative means of language is called personification. So what is personification?

Personification: Definition and Functions
Personification is a literary device in which inanimate objects are endowed with properties that are inherent in living beings. Sometimes this turn of phrase is called personification.

Personification is used by many prose writers and poets. For example, in Yesenin you can find the following lines: “Winter sings, calls, the shaggy forest lulls.” It is clear that winter as a season cannot make sounds, and the forest makes noise only because of the wind. Impersonation allows you to create bright image for the reader, to convey the mood of the hero, to emphasize some action.

What personification is in literature is clear, but this turn of phrase is also used in colloquial speech. The familiar phrases “the milk has run away”, “the heart is acting up” are also personifications. Using this literary device in a conversation makes the speech figurative and interesting. However, we don’t even think about using this technique.

You can also give examples of what personification is. For example, we often say that it is raining (even though the rain clearly has no legs) or the clouds are frowning (it is clear that clouds cannot experience any emotions).

In general, we can say that personification is a literary turn, in other words, a language trope, in which the inanimate is endowed with the signs and qualities of the living. Personification is often confused with metaphor. It is worth understanding that a metaphor is just a figurative meaning of a word, a figurative comparison. For example – “golden autumn”. Therefore, it is very easy to distinguish personification from other literary expressions.

Examples of avatars:

And woe, woe, woe!
And grief was girded with a bast,
My legs are tangled with washcloths.

(Folk song)

Personification of winter:

The gray-haired sorceress is coming,
He waves his shaggy sleeve;
And snow, and scum, and frost is falling,
And turns water into ice.
From her cold breath
Nature's gaze is numb...

(Derzhavin)

After all, autumn is already in the yard
He looks through the spinner.
Winter follows her
He walks in a warm fur coat,
The path is covered with snow,
It crunches under the sleigh...

(Koltsov)

Hyperbola:
Midnight whirlwind - the hero is flying!
Darkness from his brow, dust whistling from him!
Lightning from the eyes runs ahead,
Oak trees lie in a row behind.
He steps on the mountains - the mountains crack;
Lies on the waters - the abysses boil;
If it touches the hail, the hail falls,
He throws the towers behind the cloud with his hand.

Personification - examples from literature