Metaphor & Figuration
Prosopopoeia
Giving a voice to someone absent or dead, or to something non-human. The imagined speaker can express a perspective the narrator could otherwise only describe.
Cicero making the state of Rome herself rebuke Catiline.
Don't confuse it with Personification. Personification stops at attributing human qualities; prosopopoeia hands over the microphone.
Examples
The abandoned house spoke: “Why have you left me alone?”
The nonhuman house is given an actual speaking voice.
Often used alongside this device
Explore devices that often appear in the same passages as prosopopoeia.
Asyndeton 4 Anaphora 4 Catachresis 3 Polyptoton 3
The rest of the family
Metaphor Simile Catachresis Metonymy Synecdoche Personification Pathetic Fallacy Transferred Epithet / Hypallage Metalepsis Symbol Allusion Mythopoesis