Leitmotif

A leitmotif is an image, motif, detail, phrase or theme that recurs throughout a work, acquiring the significance of a leading idea and uniting the text into a semantic whole. The term is borrowed from musicology, where it denoted a musical theme linked to a certain character or idea. In literature the leitmotif, returning in different episodes, emphasises the main experience, the key thought or the through-symbol, creating an inner rhythm and cohesion of the artistic whole. Recurring, it is each time enriched with new semantic shades. The leitmotif is an important means of the compositional and semantic organisation of a work, especially in psychological prose, lyric and the novel. It is closely linked to the motif, the through-image and the symbol and is studied by poetics and literary theory.