12.12.2023

Examples of personification in fine art. The means of expression is the personification of what it is. In a folk song

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, echoes, 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. Personification allows you to create a vivid image in the reader, convey the mood of the hero, and 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.

And woe, woe, woe! And grief is girded with a bast, and the legs are entangled with washcloths.

A gray-haired sorceress walks, waving her shaggy sleeve; And it pours snow, and scum, and frost, and turns water into ice. Her gaze became numb from the cold breath of Nature.

After all, autumn is already looking at the yard through the spinning wheel. Following her, winter walks in a warm fur coat, powders the path with snow, crunches under the sleigh.

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

Personification is an artistic technique quite often used in literature, the essence of which is to transfer personality characteristics to inanimate objects. With its help, figurative speech is ensured. This artistic technique is a variation. With its help, you can create original semantic structures that add color to the text. For example, “the reeds whisper” (which in real life can only be done by humans).

You can also find the name “personification”, which is a synonym. Wikipedia writes that personification is a term that is used in psychology when a person mistakes their qualities and emotional reactions attributes to another person(this mechanism is called projection, which underlies this process). In sociology, personification is used to shift responsibility for bad events onto another person.

Functions of personification in art

This artistic technique is used to solve various problems.

Adding playful aspects to children's learning. For example, fables are full of personifications of various kinds. Animals are endowed with human qualities, making it more interesting for the child to perceive the plot and find the moral of the work.
Creating an emotional tone of the text. Personification can be used to attract the reader's attention to the work. It can find application not only in fiction, but also in popular science. Personification is often used as one of the marketing techniques.
Stimulate the reader’s imagination, give him the opportunity to experience what he read more colorfully.

And a number of other tasks are set by personification. This is what personification is used for.

Where is personification used?

One of the genres where personification is especially active is myth. In the texts of ancient peoples, human qualities were attributed to plants, animals, seas and oceans. Using an example, it was much easier to explain the essence of things, the reasons for the origin of the universe and the appearance of living beings. There were many gods who were embodied in inanimate objects and animals and had the same character traits as people.

Personification is also used in a fairy tale. We must draw a line between myth and fairy tale. The first is perceived as reality. That is, they believe in personification, denying that it is just an artistic device. In the case of a fairy tale, everything is clear - the characters are fictional. It does not aim to explain incomprehensible things like the origin of life on Earth.

Personification can also be used in scientific literature, although its quantity is significantly less than in fiction. Most often it is used in the form of stable expressions such as “it is raining”, which are used everywhere. That is, personification in scientific texts is used unconsciously, without the goal of creating colorfulness. Personification manifests itself most actively in art, not science.

How to find an avatar?

Finding personification in prose or poetry is not difficult. To do this, you need to start from the definition. Personification is when not a person endowed with human qualities. Example - the sun has set. Thus, in the famous poem by A. S. Pushkin “By the Lukomorye there is a green oak” from the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” there are the following lines:

Day and night, the learned cat keeps walking around the chain. He goes to the right - he starts a song, to the left - he tells a fairy tale.
Conclusions

Personification is good tool, which will help add expressiveness due to a successful comparison. It is used in a huge number of areas, from myths to scientific texts. This is a powerful technique that must be used carefully and in moderation.

, attribution of properties and characteristics of animate objects to inanimate ones.Very often, personification is used when depicting nature, which is endowed with certain human traits.

Personification - this is the endowment of inanimate objects with living qualities!

Personification - a verb used in a figurative meaning, which transfers the action of a living creature to other objects. For example, nature has become quiet; the grass is sleeping.

In the poem “Here the wind is driving the clouds,” A.S. Pushkin talks about winter as about a person, about a living being. For example, it [winter] came, lay down, flattened it, and plays pranks. This personification.

Personification - bringing an inanimate object to life

Personification - an artistic technique based on endowing inanimate objects with human qualities and feelings.

And so they start whispering trees between each other : white birch with another white birch from afar echo; a young aspen came out into the clearing like a green candle, and calls to him the same green aspen candle,waving a twig; bird cherry gives a branch to bird cherry with open buds. (M.M. Prishvin.)

Close to comparison and personification metaphors . Metaphors can rightfully claim a dominant role among all tropes.

The basis of any metaphor is an unnamed comparison of some objects with others.

Metaphor - a hidden comparison, which is based on the figurative meaning of the word, the conjunction (as, as if, as if) is absent, but is implied.

In the garden red rowan bonfire burns, but he cannot warm anyone (S.A. Yesenin).

A particularly striking means of expressive speech areextended metaphors.They arise when one metaphor entails new ones that are related to it in meaning.

The grove dissuaded golden birch cheerful language (S.A. Yesenin).

What is an epithet

Epithet (from Old Greek ἐπίθετον - "attached") -definition with a word, affecting its expressiveness. Expressed predominantlyadjective , but also adverb (“to love dearly”),noun (“fun noise”), numeral (“second life”).

An epithet is a word or an entire expression, which, due to its structure and special function in the text, acquires some new meaning or semantic connotation, helps the word (expression) gain color and richness. It is used both in poetry (more often) and in prose. Many writers use epithets (T.G. Shevchenko, I. Franko)

Epithet - this is a figurative definition that gives an artistic description of a phenomenon or object. An epithet is a comparison and can be expressed as an adjective, a noun, a verb or an adverb.

Epithet - this is a bright figurative definition, for example: golden autumn, blue sea, snow-white winter, velvet skin, crystal ringing.

What is comparison

Comparison - trope , in which one object or phenomenon is compared to another according to some characteristic common to them. The purpose of comparison is to identify new, important, advantageous properties for the subject of the statement in the object of comparison.

In comparison, the following are distinguished: the object being compared (object of comparison), the object with which the comparison takes place (means of comparison), and their common feature (base of comparison, comparative feature,lat. tertium comparisonis ). One of the distinctive features of comparison is the mention of both objects being compared, while a common feature is not always mentioned. Comparison should be distinguished frommetaphors .

Comparisons are typical forfolklore .

There are different types of comparisons:

Comparisons in the form of a comparative phrase formed with the help of conjunctions as if, as if, exactly: “The man is stupid as a pig, but cunning as the devil.” Non-union comparisons - in the form of a sentence with a compound nominal predicate: “My home is my fortress.” Comparisons formed using a noun in the instrumental case: “he walks like a gogol.” Negative comparisons: "Trying is not torture"

Comparison is a figurative expression based on a comparison of two objects or states that have a common feature.

...black eyebrows, like mourning velvet,his pale features were set off (N.V. Gogol).

The comparison could be

comparative turnover (reflectedlike in a mirror; like a birdhe dived between the branches) joins with the help of unionsas, exactly, as if, as if, as if, like, that;
complex sentence with comparative clause (You will freeze on the shore of a puddle,like a rock in the sky holds you, and below – blue.);
a combination of a verb and a noun in the instrumental case (creeps snail);
form comparative degree adjectives, adverbs (A bush creeps out of the darkness,furry bear cub.)

Comparisons can be direct (And the leaves run along the path,like yellow mice from a cat...) and negative:

It is not the wind that rages over the forest,

Streams did not run from the mountains:

Moroz the voivode on patrol

Walks around his possessions...

(N.A. Nekrasov)

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 uncharacteristic properties. 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 , just 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 full 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 shining 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 to everyone. 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 these are exactly them. Should they be used in speech or is it better to avoid them? At their core, incarnations are mythopoetic in nature, but over the long period of their existence they have 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 is it?

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. Reincarnated or ordinary personification still has not lost its meaning, although it is described from different points of view. Without it, it is difficult to imagine our speech and, in fact, modern life.

PERSONALIZATION

[or personification] - an expression that gives an idea of a concept or phenomenon by depicting it in the form of a living person endowed with the properties of this concept (for example, the Greek and Roman depiction of happiness in the form of a capricious goddess of fortune, etc.). Very often O. is used when depicting nature, endowed with certain human traits, “animated”, for example: “the sea laughed” (Gorky) or the description of the flood in Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman”: “...Neva all night /rushed to the sea against the storm,/not having overcome their violent foolishness.../and argue

284 it became impossible for her.../ The weather became even more ferocious,/ The Neva swelled and roared.../ and suddenly, like a frenzied beast,/ it rushed at the city.../ 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: “Riding to the Island of Love,” [SPB], 1730. O. is essentially, therefore, a transference of signs of animation to the concept or phenomenon and is represented as such. arr. type of metaphor (see). See "Trails". L.T.

Literary encyclopedia. 2012