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In this illustration by Milo Winter of the Aesop's fable, The North Wind and the
Sun, an anthropomorphic North Wind tries to strip a traveler of his cloak.
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of
human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the
mid 1700s.
12 Examples include animals and plants and forces of nature such as winds,
rain or the
sun depicted as creatures with
human motivations, and/or the abilities to reason and converse. The term derives from the combination of the Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos), "
human" and μορφή (morphē), "shape" or "form".
As a literary device, anthropomorphism is strongly associated with
art and storytelling where it has ancient roots. Most cultures possess a long-standing fable tradition with anthropomorphised animals as characters that can stand as commonly recognised types of
human behavior. In contrast to this, such religious doctrines as the
Christian Great Chain of Being propound the opposite, anthropocentric belief that animals, plants and non-living things, unlike humans, lack spiritual and mental attributes, immortal souls, and anything other than relatively limited awareness.
