What is personification: from acceptance to attitude

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

No one teaches a child to talk to inanimate toys and objects, but he talks to them, and even in all seriousness. No one attaches much importance to the fact that, even as an adult, a person continues this communication with the inanimate world. And, swearing once again at a frozen computer or stroking the body of his beloved car with words of gratitude, he does it so sincerely that the question involuntarily arises: "Why such a need to endow the objective world with the qualities of living beings?" To do this, first of all, you need to know what impersonation is.

Personification of the soul

The term "personification" (or personification) itself has Latin roots, is stylistic and means the "revival" of abstract or inanimate objects. But is the animation of such a plan always only a stylistic device? But it depends on the worldview and worldview of a person. If he sincerely believes that everything in the world has its own soul, then we are talking about animism (animation of living and inanimate nature), and then portrayed by the authorobjects are a manifestation of his animistic worldview. This must always be taken into account, therefore it is possible to clearly determine what the personification in a particular work is: style or worldview - only based on the personality of the author. If you know well the work of Goethe or Tyutchev, then their examples of the personification of nature can in no way be regarded as a simple literary device. These poets have a special view of the world: Goethe's is romantic, Tyutchev's is philosophical. By the way, Fyodor Ivanovich even has a poem on this subject, in which he speaks of nature in such a way that it has a soul, and freedom, and love, and a language - you just need to feel and understand all this.

The need to "animate"

And what is personification in Russian (and not only) folk art? After all, whatever genre you take, any one is replete with the animation of everything that exists and the mythical. Is it not from here and not because of this gene memory that people's need to talk with objects persists? This phenomenon can not be called a stylistic device. This is proof of the inseparability (community) of matter, regardless of its living or inanimate manifestation. The sun always laughs with us, the rain cries, the blizzard howls, and the breeze caresses. There is clearly an animistic personification here, examples of which have been tested for centuries and, probably, will remain with a person forever.

For kids and adults

It is worth dwelling in more detail on what impersonation is as a techniquefiction. This is, first of all, allegory (stylistic transformation of the subject) and allegory, which are often used in fables and parables. In these cases, the “revival” of objects serves to convey to the reader the instructive aspect of the works, therefore here the objects are selected that are most suitable for expressing a certain thought. For example, one can recall the fables of Krylov, unsurpassed in this genre, such as “Guns and Sails” and “The Cauldron and the Pot”. In the modern world, impersonation is widely used by the creators of cartoons and advertising. If in the first case, animated cars, shoes and other household items contribute to the upbringing of children: they teach them to take care and attention to everything around them, then in the second case, “live” chocolates or stomachs attract the attention of a potential consumer and clearly explain the benefits of a particular product.