Personification

Throughout “Lepidopterology,” Svenbro describes the butterfly and its transformation process as if it were a human. “Frustrated dreams,” “paralysis of the will,” and “brilliant and dizzying love” are aspects of human, not animal, psychology, and their inclusion in the speaker's description of butterflies requires readers to suspend disbelief and imagine that butterflies think and feel as humans do. This method of envisioning a butterfly as a creature with a human mind is an example of the literary device of personification, in which human characteristics are associated with an animal, idea, or object. Personification is a key tool in Svenbro's poem, because it allows him to make insights about human psychology in a much more vivid manner than would be possible with a literal description of the “conflict between dream and reality” in a person's mind.

Conceit

The technique of personification, described earlier, makes it possible for Svenbro to...