ABSTRACT
The present chapter provides a preliminary survey on the use of personification as a rhetorical device in Byzantine hymnography from the kontakia of Romanos the Melodist (sixth century) up until the canons of the ninth century. In this context, personification involves the representation of nonsubstantial qualities as persons, which makes the term semantically broader than the occasionally used Greek equivalent prosopopoeia. After an introduction to the field of study and the literary origins of personification in Greco-Roman and Semitic literature, four groups of personifications identified in the studied material are presented: 1) nature and places, 2) Hades and Death, 3) female virtues, and 4) typological images. The most radical use of personification takes place in the kontakia, even though this also influenced later canon poetry, while natural allusions and typologies appear often in canons. In most cases, personifications underline the most important theological message of the text, even though more research needs to be conducted in the future to explore other hymnographic genres and their intertextual relations to other literary traditions.
