Question

Which of these excerpts from the poems you read is an example of personification?

A. I placed a jar in Tennessee, / . . . It made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill (Stevens, "The Anecdote of the Jar")
B. He was speckled with barnacles, / fine rosettes of lime (Bishop, "The Fish") C. The work of hunters is another thing: / I have come after them and made repair (Frost, "Mending Wall")
D. so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow (Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

Answer 1

Personification is a figure of speech which uses attributes human actions and behavior to any inanimate objects or animals. In the given poems above, the excerpt from the poem that presents an example of personification is this: I placed a jar in Tennessee, / . . . It made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill (Stevens, "The Anecdote of the Jar"). Answer is A.

Answer 2

An example of personification is:

I placed a jar in Tennessee, / . . . It made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill (Stevens, "The Anecdote of the Jar")

The correct option is A.

Personification is the representation of things in human qualities or nature in abstract terms.

In the above lines from the poem "The Anecdote of the Jar" by Wallace Stevens the jar has been personified as a symbol of technology and humanity and Tennessee is a symbol of nature and wilderness. The poem is about the struggles and hardships which a human undergoes to overcome the wilderness. The human-made creation like jar restricts the intensity of the wilderness as humans control nature.