Read the poem and identify two examples of personification.

The Dawn's Awake

by Otto Leland Bohanan

The Dawn's awake!

A flash of smoldering flame and fire

Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher,

O'er all the sky so gray, forlorn,

The torch of gold is borne.

The Dawn's awake!

The dawn of a thousand dreams and thrills.

And music singing in the hills

A paean of eternal spring

Voices the new awakening.

The Dawn's awake!

Whispers of pent-up harmonies,

With the mingled fragrance of the trees;

Faint snatches of half-forgotten song-

Fathers! corn and numb -

The boon of light we craved, awaited long

Has come, has come!

Two personifications in the poem are;

The dawn's awake and;

Music is singing.

Explanation:

What Personification is

Personification is a figure of speech that gives inanimate or nonliving things some attributes of humans. Personification makes them feel or act as living things in that context. The water sings is an example of personification. It is only used by the writer to express his or her feelings to the readers.

Personifications from the Passage

The dawn's awake

The dawn's awake takes a human action"awake", and assigns it to dawn which is an inanimate object. The writer was only trying to communicate his feelings dawn can never wake.

Music is Singing

Music cannot sing like humans, here the writer gives the inanimate concept music the ability to sing. This, of course, cannot be performed by music.

Personification gives life to an object in literary writings.

2 examples:

1) the Dawn is awake, giving a human trait

2) voices of new Awakening, it's given a voice

Explanation:

personification-the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.