Personification as a Literary Device: Basis, Linguistic Form, and Functions

Abstract

This paper proposes a study of the rhetorical figure known as personification, through understanding its origin in the constructions of human thought, its linguistic form of expression, and its function in literary texts. First, I propose that personification, understood as the rhetorical fiction that shows a non-human entity as human, comes from a hierarchical organizational structure of the world known as the scala natura, which is configured through the notion of human being, person, and self. Second, I try to show the expression of personification through Spanish Grammar, at the levels of phrase and text. Lastly, I propose that this figure offers four functions in literary discourse: ornamentation, concretion of ideas or entities, creation of characters, and formulation of a fictitious world. I propose the fundaments for a much more complete understanding of personification as a literary device.