Personification describes objects, ideas or animals as if they were human, for example: The engine leapt into life when I started the car. Engines cannot really ‘leap’ (jump) but you get a good idea of how it felt when the car started.

Love is blind and often deaf, too. Obviously love is not a person that can be blind or deaf. But the writer is comparing the experience of love to someone who is deaf or blind. Being in love makes you not see clearly. For example, you might not see someone’s faults when you are in love.

The butterfly danced across the grass. Again the butterfly isn’t really dancing. It just looks like it!

In each of these, the writer describes something that is not human in words that are usually used to describe humans.

Writers use personification to make their writing more interesting and to help the reader to see something in a fresh new way.