Personification
BARRY 2011
PERSONIFICATION
Latin Roots
-ion:
act of, state of, result of, like
fic:
to do, to make
person: person
personification: act of making a person
PERSONIFICATION
• personification: a type of figurative
language that gives human
characteristics to a nonhuman thing
• Authors can personify
• abstract ideas
• forces of nature
• inanimate objects
• animals and plants
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
• Love is blind.
• A gentle breeze caressed our skin.
• Tears fell from a melancholy sky.
• The tree endured the winter
patiently, waiting for a new spring.
Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and
Literary Terms.
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such a
sight,
And the dish ran away with the
spoon.
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
Two Sunflowers Move in the Yellow Room
By William Blake
"Ah, William, we're weary of weather,"
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
"Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?“
They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run.
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
The Train
By Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a start its own,
Stop-docile and omnipotentA stable door.
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
Next, we’ll listen to a Beatles song that features personification!
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you
how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
they bought and sold you
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
PERSONIFICATION: EXAMPLES
I don't know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
no one alerted you
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weeps
( I look from the wings at the play you are staging
While my guitar gently weeps
As I'm sitting here doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weeps )
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison
PERSONIFICATION HAIKU GROUP
CHALLENGE
Your group must write a haiku that personifies
the object given.
A haiku is a poem consisting of three lines.
The first line has 5 syllables.
The second line has 7 syllables.
The third line has 5 syllables.
PERSONIFICATION HAIKU GROUP
CHALLENGE
Haiku example by Richard Wright:
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.
The webs of spiders
Sticking to my sweaty face
In the dusty woods.
PERSONIFICATION HAIKU
Jealousy sulks, glares,
Crouches in the dark shadows,
Hates others’ success.
The pale, graceful moon:
Fiercely beloved by the tides.
Lady wrapped in white.
PERSONIFICATION HAIKU
the wind
joy
a thunderstorm
popcorn
friendship
the ocean
a mountain