Personification
Etymology
From Latin persōna ("mask, character, person") plus the suffix -fication (from facere, "to make") — so "to make into a person." The persona root, an actor’s mask, is apt: personification hands a mask and a speaking part to the sea, to death, to a nation.
noun · /per-son-uh-fih-KAY-shun/
Giving human qualities, actions, or feelings to something nonhuman or abstract.
What it names
The instinct behind "the wind whispered" and "justice is blind" — lending a will or a face to things that have neither, which makes them vivid and easy to feel.
Example
The nature documentary drifted into personification, describing the glacier as "exhausted" and "retreating in defeat."
Related idea
Anthropomorphism attributes human form or traits to an animal or object as a sustained belief or depiction; personification is the lighter rhetorical touch, a passing figure of speech.