Motif

A motif is the smallest, stable semantic component of a literary work — a recurring image, a theme-situation, or an element of content that has an important significance for the revelation of the idea. In the broad sense a motif is a semantic element recurring in a writer's work, in a literary movement, or in a whole tradition (the motif of the road, of solitude, of exile, of return, of love, of death). Motifs organize the inner structure of a work, connect its parts, and create subtext and symbolic meanings. The analysis of motifs allows one to trace the deep semantic connections within a single work and in the author's work as a whole. For example, the motif of the pokrytka (a disgraced girl-mother) is a through-going one in the work of Taras Shevchenko (Kateryna, The Servant Girl), expressing the tragedy of a woman's fate and, more broadly, the fate of a wronged people; the motif of the road, exile, and longing for the homeland permeates the poetry of the Prague School. The motif is an important unit of the semantic analysis of a literary work.