Personification

Anything, excluding humans, described as possessing human features and charateristics, for example:

The wind blew the flowers as if they had sneezed.

The paint was a flesh toned color.

Obviously, sneezing is something that flowers cannot do, but humans can. Therefore, the flowers and paint have been personified through a human-like characteristic.

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Literary Terms

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/personification

Personification

Noun

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1. A person or thing typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.
2. A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form.
3. Artistic representation of an abstract quality or idea of a person.

• Chapin, Chester Fisher. Personification in Eighteenth Century English Poetry. New York, New York: 1974.
• Paxson, James S. The Poetics of Personification. Cambridge, England/ New York, New York: 1994.
• The American Heritage @Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Published by Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright @ 2000