Personification in poetry gives human traits to non-human objects or ideas to create emotional connections with readers. It is often used to help readers relate to difficult concepts and is commonly found in poetry with meter and rhyme. Poets may also use personification to address inanimate objects or concepts directly.
Personification in poetry is the process of bestowing human traits or characteristics on a non-human object or idea. Poetry form generally involves the use of figurative language—words and phrases with a different meaning than the standard definition—to convey an idea or emotion. The use of personification in poems helps the reader develop a connection between a distant object or idea and feel empathy or sympathy for that idea or object. Poets often use personification to help the reader relate to the concept being presented and to give a fuller understanding of a difficult-to-understand concept.
An example of personification may involve bestowing human traits on a tree, which is inanimate. This personification in poetry may read something like this:
“The tree of life can smile on all of us.”
This line is written in iambic pentameter, which is a type of lyrical meter widely used in poetry. Most poetry, in fact, is written in some form of meter and often with rhyme, although some poetry is not limited by these techniques. In the example above, the personification in the poem is used by giving the tree a human trait: the tree smiles. In reality, of course, a tree cannot smile because it has neither lips nor a mouth, but in this case the tree can smile figuratively: it can create happiness or at least life in all things, along this line.
Personification in poetry can also be assigned to more ethereal or intangible concepts. An example could be the following:
“My fear has reached out and touched my heart.”
Again, this verse has a precise meter, and contains an example of personification: the intangible concept of fear is to reach out and touch, which it cannot do because it has no physical form. Fear is given human traits and characteristics to achieve some emotional connection with the reader, rather than propelling a real storyline with real characters and actions.
Sometimes a poet uses personification so that the narrator or speaker can address an inanimate object or concept directly and receive an answer in response. A poet may, for example, address the heavens directly above, and in the poem the heavens may respond with a booming voice. This is, of course, impossible, since the heavens above have no voice at all, but in the poem the poet is now allowed to address the concept of heaven, God or a higher power.
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