English Literature / Unit 2 ENL 0103 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Personification and Apostrophe
Captions available
The idea
Personification gives human qualities to something non-human. Apostrophe breaks off to address someone absent or something abstract or inanimate, often with "O." Milton's "Sing, Heavenly Muse" addresses a goddess who cannot answer; the two figures often appear together when a poem speaks to a personified idea.
In practice
Treating it as a person; speaking to it.
Where people slip
Apostrophe is address, not punctuation.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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