Final answer:
The term for a figure of speech that addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction is apostrophe. It's a part of figurative language that includes other devices like personification and anthropomorphism, all of which help writers express complex ideas and emotions more vividly.
Step-by-step explanation:
Figurative Language and Its Devices
The figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or a personified abstraction such as liberty or love, is known as apostrophe. This literary device allows a writer or speaker to address someone absent, dead, or non-human as if they were present and capable of a response.
An example might be a poet speaking to the concept of love itself as if it were a person. Apostrophes are particularly effective in conveying intense emotions or creating a vivid image in the reader's mind.
Another similar device is personification, which involves giving human traits to nonhuman things. For instance, when Desmond personifies the idea of poverty as "a formidable enemy", he's assigning human characteristics to an abstract concept to emphasize its impact.
Likewise, anthropomorphism takes this one step further by imbuing nonhuman entities with human behaviors or attributes, just as Wordsworth's "daffodils" are described as "dancing".
These devices are all examples of figurative language, which also includes similes, metaphors, and hyperboles, allowing writers to create a more evocative and nuanced expression than literal language alone.