personification

Figure of speech or literary device in which animals, plants, objects, and ideas are treated as if they were human or alive (‘Clouds chased each other across the face of the Moon’; ‘Nature smiled on their work and gave it her blessing’; ‘The future beckoned eagerly to them’). See also anthropomorphism.

Personification has an important relationship with allegory, as many allegorical works, such as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, include characters that are personifications of abstract qualities, such as Despair.

Expressions like ‘the cruel sea’ or ‘a frowning sky’ are sometimes described as personal metaphors.