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FROM TODAY'S WORD A DAY...prosopopeia also prosopopoeia (pruh-so-puh-PEE-uh) noun
1. A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking.
2. A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form. Personification.
"This is not theft, but kidnapping, summoning, prosopopoeia. In Eliot's earlier poem we still have one foot in another poet's hell. Here, Dante is summoned to the City of London, his lines marauded, his inferno woven within another of Eliot's own making." Joseph Dinunzio, Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917,The Review of English Studies, Aug 1998.I have NO clue, and I cannot stress this enough, what he is going on about. Can somebody explain it in a different manner and please use it in a sentence (a REAL sentence, not a "prosopopeia is a word that must be explained" type of sentence  ) Thanks all.
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prosopopeia....Personification...please use it in a sentenceHey, with meaning 2 we've just been provided with the answer to a previous thread, maybe! - http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Board=words&Number=6077bel, I'd find it hard to incorporate in a simple sentence without committing what is probably a heinous sin and verbing the noun by putting "-ate" on the end. But I'll try:
1. She used prosopopeia, discussing at length what the Mad Hatter would say in the same situation.
2. He was guilty of some prosopopeia when he called his car 'Gertrude' and said she was often temperamental in the mornings.
Come on down, Grammar Police! 
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A search in the Concordance of Great Books (url: http://www.concordance.com/cgi-bin/letsr.pl )came up with this from Balzac's "Message" Nevertheless, I had to assuage the grief of an old woman-
servant, who staggered back at the tidings of her young master's
death, and sank half-dead into a chair when she saw the blood-
stained key. But I had another and more dreadful sorrow to think
of, the sorrow of a woman who had lost her last love; so I left
the old woman to her prosopopeia, and carried off the precious
correspondence, carefully sealed by my friend of the day.
Could anyone elucidate how this relates to the definition given? Bingley
Bingley
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Perhaps the key is the personification of the master for her?
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I would infer that the old woman-servant would use the key as an object for the grief-process by addressing it as though it were her young master, as it was the vehicle on which his remains (i.e., his blood) were carried.
Or is this far too pretentious an explanation?
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Bear in mind that Balzac must have written this in French. The translator probably used the same greek word as the author (I can't imagine that he translated a more common french word by such an exotic one), but it may have a slightly different meaning in French, and Balzac was not very meticulous in the use of "foreign" words.
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belM, here's what gurunet has. Its def. of prosopopeia sent me to its listing for personification, and I think this helps clarify pretty well:
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
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I think that the word is meant to portray a specific kind of personification (the first sense: a figure of speech in which an imaginary or absent person (in this case the dead master) is represented as speaking or acting). it is rather an extreme case, where we are left to visualize what she is doing. in a classical drama (the intended usage?) she would actually have a conversation with him, I suppose.
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In reply to:
Its def. of prosopopeia sent me to its listing for personification, and I think this helps clarify pretty well:
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
What's with the 'also called'? Have I lost it completely this Friday afternoon or are the two spellings the same?
Or are we talking about a missing diaresis here (and to heck with the umlauts)?
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In reply to:
Its def. of prosopopeia sent me to its listing for personification, and I think this helps clarify pretty well:
A figure of speech ... Also called: prosopopeia
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's with the 'also called'? Have I lost it completely this Friday afternoon or are the two spellings the same?
Or are we talking about a missing diaresis here (and to heck with the umlauts)?
Perhaps it's just a circular reference. Prosopopeia sends you to personification, which tells that it is also called prosopopeia. Please remember, when evaluating this post, that my status as gibbering loon has been universally accepted here.
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Maybe there was an exta O left out and it was supposed to read "Also called: prosopopoeia" (analagous to onomatopoeia??) Who knows?
BTW, I commented on this word down in "Weekly Themes" but I guess that part of the board isn't visited much any more.
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Max, you're right about the circumnavigation. That's exactly what happened. But I'll have to lay claim to the gibbering loon (or similar--don't want to intrude on your personal territory!) title for this one. In my other post, Anna, I wrote everything up to the colon. All the rest is a direct copy from gurunet. I think I'll be the gibbering lunatic. 
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Here's what Anu's wordserver says about personification:
Personification \Per*son`i*fi*ca"tion\, n. [Cf. F. personnification.]
1. The act of personifying; impersonation; embodiment. --C. Knight.
2. (Rhet.) A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality; prosopopeia; as, the floods clap their hands.
It stands to me that prosopopeia is just a fancy way of saying 'personification', except for expressing 'speaking as if being an imaginary person' which, I would say, definitely exceeds p..n's definition.
So, a man posting here and claiming to be Albert Gore would (probably, not necessarily) be guilty of a nasty personification, whereas the same man, introducing himself as the 43rd President of the US of A, could only be called a prosopopeia enthusiast!
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there are two distinct senses given by most sources for prosopopoeia: (1) a personification or embodiment of a quallity or other abstraction [this is what we usually think of when we think of personification]; and (2) an absent [read dead] or imaginary person is portrayed as speaking or acting -- usually where a plausible but invented speech is put into the mouth of a real character.
It is this second sense which seems to be giving us problems. "I am dying, Egypt," says Antony to Cleopatra in his death scene of their eponymous play -- obviously we have no recording of this ever being said, but the prosopopoeia is dramatically justified! E. L. Doctorow made a writing career of using this device in his fiction.
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Far be it from me to YART, but where would "anthropomorphism" fit in, then, now that we have three words to juggle?
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Flowers danced about the lawn.
But not Gennifer, or at least not the lawn at the White House.
TEd
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what's "pertaining to nephews" nepotist springs to my mind. But this is not really neutral .
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>If materternal is "pertaining to aunties"...
shona, just to avert promulgation of the error, the word is 'materteral' (no 'n')... and I don't have an answer for nieces and nephews.
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nepotistYou're quite right, wsieb! Though according to Merriam-Webster, the word with unsavoury connotations is nepotistic so maybe we could invent nepotist as a neutral term for 'pertaining to nephews/nieces'? the word is 'materteral' (no 'n')Thanks tsuwm. Shame, as materternal sounds better. Sort of maternal plus something. Also has a hint of the eternal about it...
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