literary themes
Stories' deeper meanings
Literary themes are the central ideas or underlying meanings explored in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama.
Unlike plot (what happens) or subject (what a work is about), themes express what a work says about its subject: a novel about war might explore themes of sacrifice, disillusionment, or the loss of innocence.
Common literary themes—love, death, identity, power, redemption—recur across cultures and eras because they address enduring human concerns.
- hopeDesire for good outcomes
- identityWho someone is
- redemptionRecovery or moral restoration
- ambitionDesire for achievement
- betrayalBreaking of trust
absurdity · revolution · freedom · colonization · class struggle · social class · love · forbidden love · determinism · hubris · morality · justice · truth · disillusionment · loss · loss of innocence · grief · self-discovery
- literary analysisliterary analysis, character analysis, book review, plot, critical analysis
- literary studiescriticism, literary history, modernism, literary movements, romanticism
- literature grammar readersliterary analysis, narrative structure, poetic devices, literary criticism, plot development
- Pre-RaphaelitesRossetti, brotherhood, Ophelia, Waterhouse, William Morris
- SatyriconMenippean satire, Roman banquet
- Latin LiteratureCicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Caesar
literary themesplot
Storyline or land parcel
character · setting · narrative structure · characterization · dialogue