Theme (literature)
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A theme is a broad idea, message, or lesson conveyed by a written text. This message is usually about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated. The theme is different from the superficial outlay of the text; it is normally the meaning of the text on a more abstract level.
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[edit] Interpretation
Themes are often interpreted in diverse ways by different people or critics, regardless of whether or not the theme discussed was the original intent of the author. The same story can also be given very different themes in the hands of different authors. For instance, the source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Matteo Bandello's The Tragical History of Romeo and Juliet emphasizes the perils of dishonesty and disobedience.
Theme should not be confused with a moral, as a theme is not a lesson learned, but more like man Vs. Man
[edit] Etymology
The word 'theme' comes from the Old French word tesme (French: thème), from [Latin] thema, from Ancient Greek θέμα (théma), from τίθημι (tithemi), meaning “‘I put, place’”, which in turn is reduplicative from the Proto-Indo-European word *dʰeh₁-, meaning ‘to put, place, do’.
[edit] Classic themes
Themes differ from culture to culture, but there is a general set of "classic themes" that are prevalent in all cultures and histories. These themes have their roots in the oral traditions of different cultures, and recur in a range of literary works.
[edit] Techniques
There are several literary techniques that are often used to express themes.
[edit] Leitwortstil
Leitwortstil is the 'the purposeful repetition of words' in a given literary piece that "usually expresses a motif or theme important to the given story". This device dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, which connects several tales together in a story cycle. The storytellers of the tales relied on this technique "to shape the constituent members of their story cycles into a coherent whole."[1]
[edit] Thematic patterning
Thematic patterning is "the distribution of recurrent thematic concepts and moralistic motifs among the various incidents and frames of a story. In a skillfully crafted tale, thematic patterning may be arranged so as to emphasize the unifying argument or salient idea which disparate events and disparate frames have in common". This technique also dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights.[2]
[edit] Reference
- ^ Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s) Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358-360 [359-60]
- ^ Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s): Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358-360 [360]
[edit] External links
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