Poetry Terms: Personification ♥

 

DEFINITION
A comparison between a non-human thing to a human. This just simply means the author wants to make a non-human thing sound like a human.

EXAMPLE

The Cat and The Fiddle
Hey diddle, Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
     - Mother Goose
 

SIGNIFICANCE

This type of figure of speech makes many connections to human beings which is a pretty good thing because we're humans and we understand things better if they relate to us. By making animals, objects or the nature sound more human-like, we feel like their "actions" are closer to us and it's easier to guess what their "feelings" and "emotions" are. This can also mean that when we get to the point where we can truly understand the mood and the feeling of the poem, we can REALLY get the poem.