For several centuries there was no word in the Latin language to describe this "perceptive faculty of the mind." At last they coined the word "imaginatio," which appears in English as "imagination." This word is found as early as Chaucer; but it is quite conceivable that the English language should, like the Latin, have passed through its best period without any single word to describe the "mind's eye." The details of the expansion will vary according to the point and purpose of the metaphor. In "the ship is the plough of the sea," nothing more than the action of the plough on the surface of the water is the relation considered; but in "the conversation of Socrates was the plough of the Greek mind," the point of the metaphor is the fertilizing action of the plough in breaking up the land and making it ready to receive the seed. 82. Personifications. (1) Men are liable to certain feelings - such as shame, fear, repentance, and the like which seem not to be originated by the person, but to come upon him from without. For this reason such impersonal feelings are in some languages represented by impersonal verbs. In Latin these verbs are numerous, 66 'pudet," "piget," "tædet," "pœnitet," "libet," etc. In early English they were still more numerous, and we retain "it snows," "it rains," "it hails," though we have almost, or quite lost "methinks," "meseems," "it shames me," "it pitieth me," "it repents me." Men are, however, not contented with separating their feelings from their own person: they also feel a desire to account for them. For this purpose they have often imagined as the cause of their feelings Personal Beings, such as Hope, Fear, Faith, etc. Hence arose what may be called Personification. (2) Personification is also used to account for results in the outer world of which the causes are not visible. Hence the Winds and the Seasons are connected or identified with Persons, ―e.g., Zephyr, Flora; and other natural objects which seem to have a kind of life are personified in the same way. Thus the trees are personified as Dryads. (3) Personal Metaphor is the name that should strictly be given to a third class of Personifications. A complex system, such as the earth or sea, considered and spoken of as a whole, comes easily to be regarded and spoken of as possessing a kind of Personality. Thus Wordsworth, in the following verses, is on the point of personifying evening and the sun: the tendency becomes stronger as he continues, and at last the Sea is spoken of as a "Being," and actually personified. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, Sonnets. For the same reason nations and cities e g., England, France, Rome, Jerusalem are regarded as Persons possessing individual characteristics. Lastly, Youth, Pleasure, Old Age, appear sometimes to be instances of this kind of Personification:1. Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm. GRAY. 1 These cases, however, approximate to those in Classes (1) and (2) above. See page 136 to distinguish between Personal Metaphor and Personification. Def. Personification is the creation, of a fictitious Person in order to account for (1) Psychological or (2) obscure Physical phenomena. 83. Personifications of Classes (1) and (2) cannot be expanded. The process of expansion into Simile can be performed in the case of a Metaphor, because there is implied a comparison. But the process cannot be performed in a Personification of class (1) and (2) where no comparison is implied. "A frowning mountain" can be expanded, because this is a Metaphor implying a comparison between a mountain and a person, a gloom and a frown. But "frowning Wrath" cannot be expanded, because this is a Personification of class (1) implying no comparison. The same applies to "the joyful Dryads." It is the essence of a Metaphor that it should be literally false, as in " a frowning mountain." It is the essence of a Personification that, though founded on imagination, it is conceived to be literally true, as in "pale Fear," "dark Dishonor." A painter would represent "Death" as "pale," and "Dishonor" as "dark," though he would not represent a "mountain" with a "frown," or a "ship" as a "plough." 84. Apparent Exception. The only case where a simile is involved and an expansion is possible is where there is an implied Metaphor as well as a Personification. Thus the phrase "Mars mows down his foes" is not literally true. No painter would represent Mars (though he would Time) with a scythe. It is therefore a Metaphor, and as such capable of expansion, thus: "As easily as a haymaker mows down the grass, so easily does Mars cut down his foes with his sword." But the phrase "Mars slays his foes" is, from a poet's or painter's point of view, literally true. It is therefore no metaphor, and cannot be expanded. 85. Personification analyzed. Though we cannot expand a Personification into a Simile, we can explain the details of it. The same analogy which leads men to find a correspondence between visible and invisible objects leads them also to assume a similarity between cause and effect. This belief, which is embodied in the line, Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat, is the basis of all Personification. Since fear makes men look pale, and dishonor gives a dark and scowling expression to the face, it is inferred that Fear is "pale" and Dishonor "dark." And in the same way Famine is " gaunt;" Jealousy, "green-eyed; " Faith, "pure-eyed;" Hope," whitehanded." men. 86. Personal Metaphor, natural and convenient. - We instinctively wish that visible Nature-e.g., mountains, winds, trees, rivers, etc. - should have a power of sympathizing with This desire begets a kind of poetical belief that such a sympathy actually exists. Further, the vocabulary expressing the variable moods of man is so much richer than that which expresses the changes of Nature that the latter borrows from the former. For these reasons, even where we do not venture on distinct Personification, we often attribute some of the relations of a Person to inanimate objects, and thus the morn is said to laugh, mountains to frown, winds to whisper, rivulets to prattle, oaks to sigh. The following may be given as a definition of Personal Metaphor: Def. A Personal Metaphor is a transference of personal relations to an impersonal object for the purpose of assisting conception. In Personal Metaphors, if we attempt to expand them, the first term will always be "a person;" the second, the predicated relation properly belonging to the person, and improperly transferred to the impersonal object; the third, the impersonal object. Thus : "As a person frowns, so an overhanging mountain (looks gloomy)." 66 As a child prattles, so a brook (makes a ceaseless cheerful noise)." It is not always easy to draw the line between Personification and Personal Metaphor. "The gray morn comes on apace," or "the morn steals on the night," may fairly be treated as Personal Metaphors. But when pictorial details are added, e.g., — But look, the Morn, in russet mantle clad, Hamlet. there seems to be a Personification, which is still more evident in Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont Il Penseroso. 87. Pseudo-Metaphors and Hyperbole.-Little or nothing can be gained by expanding a Personal Metaphor. A frown or a sigh presupposes a person, and therefore we learn little from stating the relation fully," as a person sighs, so an oak |