Definition: Personification is applying a human trait (quality, emotion, etc.) to an inanimate object, essentially any non-living thing.
Personification is one of the simplest figures of speech, to use and understand. When we assign human qualities such as looking, shouting, dancing to non-living things/objects, we use personification. For example, if I say, "The sunflowers danced in the lovesome sunlight.", I use personification twice. First, when I use 'dance' for the sunflowers and second, when I use 'lovesome' for the sunlight. Similarly, if I say, "Horror was staring at me.", I use the human ability 'to stare' for horror. Literally, horror cannot stare, but we give it the ability to do so (as a part of figurative language), to add more emotion to what is said/written.
In the following paragraphs, we shall study how personification has been used since centuries to make a simple text more dramatic, to convey a thought aptly and to sometimes, add humor.