Personification

Personification is the representation of any thing, being, or abstraction as a person or with person-like qualities. In the arts and as a literary device, personification is common for: places, especially cities, countries, and continents; elements of the natural world, such as trees, the seasons, the traditional "four elements", the four cardinal winds, and the five senses; and abstract concepts, such as death, the four cardinal virtues, the seven deadly sins, and creative expression (for instance, as personified by the nine Muses). In most religions, deities have a strong element of personification, with human-like emotional reactions, desires, and intellectual capabilities. Often, deities themselves in polytheistic religions are embodied personifications of abstract concepts, such as in ancient Greek religion and the related ancient Roman religion (with gods that are personifications of the sea, the sun, victory, death, etc.), in particular among the many minor deities. Many such deities, such as the tyches or tutelary deities for major cities, survived the arrival of Christianity, now as symbolic personifications stripped of religious significance. An exception was the winged goddess of victory, Victoria/Nike, who developed into the visualisation of the Christian angel. Generally, personifications lack much in the way of narrative myths, although classical myth at least gave many of them parents among the major Olympian deities. The iconography of several personifications "maintained a remarkable degree of continuity from late antiquity until the 18th century". Female personifications tend to outnumber male ones, at least until modern national personifications, many of which are male. Personifications are very common elements in allegory, and historians and theorists of personification complain that the two have been too often confused, or discussion of them dominated by allegory. Single images of personifications tend to be titled as an "allegory", arguably incorrectly. By the late 20th century personification seemed largely out...