Persona

   Persona was the Latin word for the mask worn by actors in the classical theatre. In literary criticism, persona is the term used for the “I” of a narrative poem or the speaker whose voice we hear in a lyric poem. Although a poetic persona may be presented as close to the author, it is helpful to emphasize that the author and poetic persona are not one and the same; and oftentimes there is a significant distance between the two.