[‘ A rhetorical device by which an imaginary, absent, or dead person is represented as speaking or acting; the introduction of a pretended speaker; an instance of this. Now rare.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌprɒsə(ʊ)pəˈpiːə/, U.S. /prəˌsoʊpəˈpiə/, ˌprɑsəpəˈpiə
Forms: 15 *prosopopeya*, 15 *prosopopoiia*, 15–16 *prosopopaeia*, 15–16 *prosopopaia*, 15–16 *prosopopoia*, 15–17 *prosopopoea*, 15– *prosopopeia*, 15– *prosopopoeia*, 16 *prosopopaea*, 16 *prosopopeiae*, 16 *prosopopoeja*.
Etymology: < classical Latin /prosōpopoeia/ speech composed and delivered in the character of another person, impersonation (Quintilian), in post-classical Latin also representation of inanimate or abstract thing as speaking or as displaying other characteristics of an animate, conscious being (from 13th cent. in British sources) < Hellenistic Greek /προσωποποιία/ < ancient Greek /πρόσωπον/ face, person (see prosopon n.) + -ποιία/ -poeia comb. form. Compare Italian /prosopopea (1308). Compare prosopopey n.
*1.* A rhetorical device by which an imaginary, absent, or dead person is represented as speaking or acting; the introduction of a pretended speaker; an instance of this. Now rare.
1550 R. Sherry /Treat. Schemes & Tropes/ sig. E.iii, These foresayd sixe kindes [of rhetorical description] Quintiliane dothe put vnder Prosopopeia.
1561 J. Daus tr. H. Bullinger /Hundred Serm. vpon Apocalips/ xxxii. 199 We vnderstande these thinges to be spoken by a figure called Prosopopeia: that is by the fayning of a persone.
a/1586 Sir P. Sidney /Apol. Poetrie/(1595) sig. B4v, His notable /Prosopopeias, when he maketh you as it were, see God comming in his Maiestie.
1609 R. Bernard /Faithfull Shepheard/(new ed.) 67 Prosopopeia; the feigning of a person: when wee bring in dead men speaking, or our selues doe take their person vpon vs, or giue voice vnto senselesse things.
1647 J. Sprigge /Anglia Rediviva/(1854) Addr. 8 Feigned speeches, prosopopeias and epistrophes.
1699 /Protestant Mercury/ 28 Apr.–3 May No. 365. 2/2 Also Rules for making Colloquies, Essays, Fables, Prosopopaia’s.
1759 /Dict. Holy Bible/ II. 591/1 Then, by a beautidul prosopopoeia, he introduces the dead greeting his arrival among them.
1787 G. Gregory tr. R. Lowth /Lect. Sacred Poetry Hebrews/(1816) I. xiii. 280 Prosopopœia, or Personification. Of this figure there are two kinds: one, when action and character are attributed to fictitious, irrational, or even inanimate objects; the other, when a probable but fictitious speech is assigned to a real character.
1877 J. Morley /Crit. Misc./ 2nd Ser. 153 This is his one public literary Equivocation..it was resorted to..to give additional weight by means of a harmless prosopopoeia to an argument for the noblest of principles.
1922 L. H. Wild /Let. Guide Bible/ ii. iii. 47 Prosopopoeia, representing an actual or ideal person as present or speaking.
1995 D. Donoghue /Walter Pater/ xviii. 201 She summons him to appear, as in the rhetorical figure of prosopopoeia.
*2.*
*a.* A figure of speech by which an inanimate or abstract thing is represented as a person, or as having personal characteristics, esp. the power to think or speak; an instance of this; = personification n. 1.
Formerly an aspect of sense 1: see quots. 1609, 1787.
1563 R. Reynolds /Foundacion of Rhetorike/ f. 50, Concerning Prosopopœia, it is..when to any one againste nature, speache is feigned to bee giuen.
1578 T. Tymme tr. J. Calvin /Comm. Genesis/ 142 Clemency and gentleness..is attributed therevnto, by a figure called Prosopopoiia [Gk. /κατα προσωποπιιας/].
1649 F. Roberts /Clavis Bibliorum/(ed. 2) 276 The universall triumph and gladnesse as it were of all creatures (in an elegant Prosopopeia) is intimated.
1676 T. Shadwell /Virtuoso/ i. 9 He makes Flowers, nay, Weeds, speak eloquently, and, by a noble kind of Prosopopeia, instruct Mankind.
1732 G. Berkeley /Alciphron/ I. v. xxii. 314 Sentiments, and Vices, which by a marvellous Prosopopœia he converts into so many Ladies.
1758 T. Leland /Hist. Reign Philip King of Macedon/ iv. 148 He makes use of a remarkably beautiful prosopopoeia, and imagines that the several powers of Greece thus call on the Athenians to account for their conduct.
1884 A. Lambert in /19th Cent./ June 947 Prosopopœia has no place even in popular science.
1885 /Mind/ *10* 150 The Prosopopœia is written in the form of a contention before judges between the soul and the body.
1911 /Mod. Lang. Notes/ *26* 165/2 A ‘Prosopopoeia’, in which the Lover’s Heart addresses the Breast of his second Lady.
1992 M. Blonsky /Amer. Mythologies/ xviii. 451 He’s completely changed the face of the city—there it is, the face, a prosopopeia, the trope that fools us that the thing we’re struggling with is as stable as our own reassuring faces.
†*b.* In extended use: a person or thing in which some quality or abstraction is embodied; the embodiment or epitome of something. Obs.
1825 B. Disraeli /Let./ 12 Nov. (1982) 49 A man, who might fairly be considered as a very prosopopeia of the Public Press.
1857 P. St. G. Cooke /Scenes & Adventures in Army/ xxii. 156 The militia (that prosopopoeia of weakness, waste, and confusion) had been called out.
1867 G. A. Macfarren /Six Lect. Harmony/ iv. 149 Everywhere at once..the prosopopœia of ubiquity.
Derivatives
prosopoˈpoeial adj. = /prosopopoeic/ adj.
1577 H. I. tr. H. Bullinger /50 Godlie Serm./ II. iv. iii. sig. Ddd.iii/2, To this place now doe belong the Prosopopeiall speeches of God [L. /Dei prosopopœiæ./].
1652 T. Urquhart /Εκσκυβαλαυρον/ 278, I could have used,..Apostrophal and Prosopopœial diversions.
1991 /Jrnl. Musicol./ *9* 190 The prosopopoeial evocation of the dead.
2001 /Columbia Law Rev./ *101* 1879 The gift is prosopopoeial; in Part II, speaking from beyond the grave, it tells us that no amount of theoretical dirt will completely fill the holes or gaps in the legal stories about who gives what to whom.
prosopoˈpoeic adj. of, relating to, or involving prosopopoeia.
1883 H. Cotterill /Does Science Aid Faith?/ 57 A poetic and prosopopœic representation of the attribute of Divine wisdom.
1950 /Jrnl. Rom. Stud./ *40* 20 It is suitable to contrast the prosopopoeic virtuosity of Thucydides’ other disciple, the Roman Sallust.
2000 /Renaissance Q./ *53* 171 Lanyer also uses the prosopopoeic description of Cooke-ham to idealize the Countess’s estate.
†prosopopoeical adj. /Obs./ = /prosopopoeic/ adj.
1576 A. Fleming /Panoplie Epist./ Argt. 192 He hath a Prosopopoical speach to his countrie.
1657 J. Smith /Myst. Rhetorique/ 149 Thus in Joel 2. from 1. to the 12. ver. you have a most lively Rhetorical Prosopopoeical description of the terrible Army of the Babylonians.