Thanks, WW, I learned something--namely, that I had confused anthropomorphism with personification. From Gurunet:
pro·so·po·pe·ia also pro·so·po·poe·ia (prə-sō'pə-pē'ə)
n.
1. A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking.
2. See personification (sense 3).
[Latin prosōpopoeia, from Greek prosōpopoiiā : prosōpon, face, mask, dramatic character (pros-, pros- + ōpon, face, from ōps, ōp-, eye) + poiein, to make.]
per·son·i·fi·ca·tion (pər-sŏn'ə-fĭ-kā'shən)
n.
1. The act of personifying.
2. A person or thing typifying a certain quality or idea; an embodiment or exemplification: “He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative” (Ralph Ellison).
3. A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form, as in Hunger sat shivering on the road or Flowers danced about the lawn. Also called prosopopeia.
4. Artistic representation of an abstract quality or idea as a person.
anthropomorphism (ăn'thrəpōmôr'fĭzəm) [Gr.,=having human form], in religion, conception of divinity as being in human form or having human characteristics. Anthropomorphism also applies to the ascription of human forms or characteristics to the divine spirits of things such as the winds and the rivers, events such as war and death, and abstractions such as love, beauty, strife, and hate. As used by students of religion and anthropology the term is applied to certain systems of religious belief, usually polytheistic. Although some degree of anthropomorphism is characteristic of nearly all polytheistic religions, it is perhaps most widely associated with the Homeric gods and later Greek religion. Anthropomorphic thought is said to have developed from three primary sources: animism, legend, and the need for visual presentation of the gods.
OP
