present in the odes and in the other forms of poetry printed in
this magazine "continued without change to 1780, and beyond
to the time of Wordsworth and Byron." ⁴. In its origins, personifi-
cation is a classical figure of speech and Yost cites its widespread
use in later eighteenth-century poetry as "another proof of the
supremacy of . . . neo-classicism" during this period. ⁵ Cer-
tainly, if one thinks simply of the earlier period as "neoclassic"
and of the later period as "preromantic," it may be disconcerting
to find that personified abstractions occur more frequently in later
than in earlier eighteenth-century verse. In attempting to account
for this fact, I have thought it best to begin at the beginning. The
attitudes toward poetry responsible for the proliferation of per-
sonified abstractions in later eighteenth-century verse are to be
viewed in the light of accentuated tendencies: in order to gain
an adequate understanding of later developments one must see
what poets and critics of the early century have to say about the
figure. But first, a word about "backgrounds."

The animating metaphor is frequent in the writings of the
ancients, in prose as well as in poetry. Eighteenth-century critics
refer to isolated examples of the figure in Homer, Virgil, Plato,
Horace, and many others. There were, in addition, the numerous
personifications of abstract qualities which appeared in the
Tabula of Cebes and in Prodicus' apologue The Choice of Her-
cules. These pieces, which were included in the curriculum of
the schools, had a considerable influence on the eighteenth-cen-
tury allegorical poem. ⁶

The comments of Aristotle, Quintilian, and Longinus showed
that personification enjoyed a high measure of esteem among
those ancients most renowned in the eighteenth century for criti-
cal acumen. Aristotle stressed the value of the animating
metaphor as that figure which exhibits "the actions of living
creatures . . . attributed to things without life; as when the
sword is said to devour." ⁷ Animation itself is called "the greatest
grace of an oration." ⁸ The comments of Quintilian and Longinus

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