prosopopoeia

plural prosopopoeias · plural prosopopoeiae · alternative prosopopeia · alternative prosopopœia

1. countablerhetoricuncountableAn act of personifying a person or object when communicating to an audience; a figure of speech involving this.

   Prosopopœia a new person feigns, And to inanimates speech and actions deigns.

   1835, L[arret] Langley, “[Rhetorical Figures.] Prosopopoeia.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 23

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   Of the prosopopœia or personification, there are two kinds: one when action and character are attributed to fictitious, irrational, or even inanimate objects; the others, when a probable but fictitious speech is assigned to a real character.

   1819 January, Thomas Hartwell Horne, “An introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures”, in The Eclectic Review, page 35

   Hence the frequency and beauty of the prosopopoeia in poetry, where trees, mountains, and streams are personified, and the inanimate parts of nature acquire sentiment and passion.

   2013, Graham Harvey, Animism: Respecting the Living World, page 4

2. countableuncountableThe personification of an abstraction.