Guide to Literary Terms | Theme

Theme - the central and dominating idea in a literary work. A theme may also be a short essay such as a composition. In addition, the term means a message or moral implicit in any work of art.

The term is from the Greek thema, meaning “proposition,” which was derived from tithenai, meaning “to put.”

The theme of Euripides’s The Trojan Women is anguish over the seeming necessity for war; in Shakespeare’s Othello, the theme is jealousy.