Additional Information
An example from a poem
O Winter, bar thine adamantine doors!
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d, sheathed
In ribbed steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
For he hath rear’d the sceptre o’er the world.
(Excerpt from: William Blake, “To Winter”, in: The Poems of William Blake, London: Longman, 1971, p. 5)
- The capitalisation turns the noun “winter” into a name and Blake addresses winter as a person when asking him to “bar the doors”.
- In the following lines the poet depicts this time of the year as a harsh ruler who “rides heavy” and who has lifted his “sceptre”.
- Thus in the first and second stanza of Blake’s poem winter is no longer a force of nature, it almost assumes the role of an ancient god with the personification lending intensity to the imagery.
An example from a play
Act I, Scene 7 in Shakespeare’s Macbeth opens with a soliloquy. Contemplating the murder of Duncan Macbeth dwells on Duncan’s fine qualities (ll. 18 ff):
[…] his [i.e. Duncan’s] virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, hors’d
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
- In comparing Duncan’s virtues to angels Shakespeare combines the personification with a simile (cf. 91 Interpreting a Simile). And even though pity personified as a new-born babe might suggest helplessness, it becomes a powerful force when spreading the news of the murder.
- The powerful imagery of these lines accounts for Macbeth’s conclusion that “We will proceed no further in this business” (I,7,31).
