Thanks so much for your kind words, Téo! We're happy to hear you enjoyed the video and we hope you enjoy the others in our series as well!

Greetings General Kenobi

Thanks so much, SweetDessert! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

@Dan Thompson Thanks so much for your kind words, Dan. We'll be sure to add the suggestions to the growing list of terms we'd like to cover. And yeah, an entire series on theme--a concept that can be quite challenging for students to wrap their heads around--is a great idea.

Thanks so much for your kind words, Muneera! We hope you and your daughter enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much for the comment, josuebenvindo! We're delighted to see our series making its way to Brazil, and we hope all is well with you during the ongoing public health crisis in our two countries. If you are interested in learning more, you can visit our dedicated pages to each literary term on our website (in this case, here): liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-symbolism These pages offer a full transcript of each video and include suggestions for further readings and applications for literature teachers and students.

He’s responding to all the comments, what a mad lad

@@RickhunterSDF1 Ha! When COVID-19 and wildfire smoke keep you indoors, you have to do something to keep sane.

Thanks so much, Anthony! We hope you find the other videos in our series useful to you as well. Good luck with that novel!

Thanks so much for your kind words, Caleb. We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Wow, thanks so much for your kind words, asmaaelsokkary1196! We hope you enjoy the other lessons in our series as well!

Awesome! Good luck with that presentation, Amrutha!

We love these references to the French Symbolists, Khatoon! (Though we are big fans of Zola...)

Thanks so much for the suggestion, Nersha! We'll give it some thought as we plan out the future directions for the site.

Thanks so much, Denzel! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks, Tamar! If you'd like to see a full transcript of the lesson, check it out here: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-symbolism

Thanks so much for your kind words. We hope you enjoy the other videos in the series as well!

Great work here, Hema! Joyce is quite a good choice for practicing your identification and interpretation of symbols. He certainly builds quite a few into Portrait...

@@SWLF 😄👍

You're very welcome, imen! We're delighted to hear that you found the lesson useful.

Thanks so much, Chessematics! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Happy to hear you enjoyed the video, Leesa! We hope you enjoy the others in our series as well!

Great question, Rochelle! Authors will often build elaborate symbolic structures into their poems, plays, and stories, and understanding these structures can help us to better understand their themes, characters, and events.

Thanks so much for this comment, Jodi! We agree that symbols can be complicated--particularly given the fact that they are not subject to universal categorization. Here's a really simple one taken from Star Wars (to keep with that theme). Whenever Darth Vader appears in that movie, hes usually accompanied by that stirring John Williams track "DonDonDon, Don DA Don, Don DA Don." This music doesn't, of course, HAVE to be associated with Darth Vader, but within the terms of the movie, it is. Incidentally, this is also an example of a motif (or, more specifically, a leitmotif) in which a certain musical phrase is associated (somewhat arbitrarily) with a given character. As this idea suggests, leitmotifs and motifs in general are recurring symbolic patterns, but symbols can also be one offs. Another example of a motif (and a symbol) is the mangled pink teddy bear that keeps showing up in AMC's terrific tv series Breaking Bad. That little teddy bear floating in the pool opens so many episodes of the show, and its strange recurrence forces us as readers to ask why it does--what the little bear is associated with either via metaphor (it is disfigured like Gus Fring is disfigured), synecdoche (a plane crash caused, indirectly, by Walter White's drug business causes the bear to fall into the pool), or metonymy (the character Jane Margolis). OK, one final big one. In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, students often learn that a billboard advertising an eye doctor (TJ Eckleburg) stands in for God, because one character--the traumatized George Wilson--sees the billboard and says "God sees everything." In this dramatic moment, the billboard isn't a stand in for God. Wilson just imbues that billboard with that meaning after the death of his wife. This passage certainly speak to some complicated themes in the novel (e.g. we could talk for a LONG time about the significance of characters confusing capitalism/advertising with religion), but those discussions only make sense if we view symbols as less a marker of how to read the world "correctly" and more a marker of understanding a character's worldview, which is subject to debate. For more on this difference, see our "What is Free Indirect Discourse?" video. We hope that helped!

In text??

Thanks for the suggestion, Isle! We've had a few suggestions for literary theory, and we tried out a bit of Freud in our "What is the Uncanny?" video. We may put more together later this year.

Wow, thanks so much, Krishna! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much, Siah! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much, Lorenzo! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much, Muhammad! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much, ILW! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well.

You're very welcome, @lohithreddy2121 ! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Excellent! We're so happy you found the lesson useful and we hope you enjoy the other videos in the series as well!

Thanks for the suggestion, lionhogwarts3642! We do have a "What is an allusion?" up on our page, and we'll add epithet to the list!

Thanks so much, Zia! We're trying to get a few more recorded before the start of the summer!

Ha! That's just a bit of dark humor, we'd say.

Thanks so much, Razia! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Thanks so much for your suggestion, Zoza! We are rolling out a new video series on Standard English Grammar that we hope will be useful to you as you learn English. The first video in that series is available here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rMCagd2f29fLdac.html

@@SWLF Think you sir very much🌷

Thank you

@@SWLF thank you

Thanks so much, Abhik! We're so happy to see our videos getting some international views!

@@SWLF You guys deserve more

@@abhikmodak3170 We're trying! Thanks for getting the word out!

Hi, Nisrin. As with other symbols, there are no universal symbolic values for numbers in literature. The number 13, for example, is considered unlucky in American culture, but that number has nothing inherently ominous about it. A better approach to symbols is to determine how the text and its accompanying context encourages us to read a given number with symbolic value.

Great question, Lebohang! Symbols can change fairly dramatically from poem to poem or story to story. Signs, however, are agreed upon symbols within a given community. In other words, symbols are more variable than signs.

Ha! Thanks so much, @nibuminuvlog4317 ! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

Interesting! Could you give us an example or two, Alchemist?

Hmm, we're a bit confused by the question, TMTnl. There are no "universal" symbols--they operate in different ways as we move from one literary text to another. As such, there are no "universal" levels of symbolism in literature. Perhaps your lecturer is thinking about critics of the mid-20th century such as Northrup Frye, whose "Anatomy of Criticism" proposed a set of different kinds of symbols based upon medieval ways of reading texts?

@@SWLF I will check those, Thank you for pinting this out.

Ha! Yes, except for us immortals.

No one is getting paid for this project, ArchaicNymph. We're all just taking a bit of time out of our regular schedules to do a bit of public outreach.

what's the difference between allegory and Symbolism

@@nayajouri9824 Allegory and symbolism are often confused, but they are not the same thing. Symbolism is the use of symbols, usually physical objects, to represent abstract ideas or qualities. ... Allegory is a work that makes extensive use of symbolism in order to communicate a broader moral or meaning.

We're gonna go ahead and assume that you meant thanks rather than the supervillain Thanos from the Avengers movie series here. Thank you for supporting the series!

Ha! Interesting metaphor, @morescodesup2087 ! But what is the nature of the vehicle / tenor relationship here? Check out our "What are vehicles and tenors?" video and then let us know your thoughts...

Hmm, well we certainly disagree, @intellectually_lazy . We try to keep these videos incredibly short to encourage viewers to pursue the topic for themselves in greater depth. They are meant to be a starting point, not a complete picture.

I would sugest a book on Semiology, the study of signs and symbols. A good text book on the subject will go through - the three main types of symbols; Symbolic, iconic and Indexical - the main players in studying symbols, like linguists like Sausure, Levi-Strass, and pragmatists like Barthes, Propps, Jakobson -it should discuse in detail the differences between the two basic communication dimensions of Loungue and Parole -and should explain how contex encodes meaning into symbols. That would be a good place to start if you want the meat and potatoes.

It is indeed! What did you have in mind? And thanks for the comment, john! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!

@@SWLF I been reading bible since I was a kid Now I know that there are many hidden messages in the bible through symbolism

Yea, revelation is full of symbolic

@@johnyoutube6746 indeed. And full of parables, symbolic, allegory , metaphor , figure of speech

@@Moodboard39 Do you know what/who is the God in the bible

We can't guarantee a response, but you are welcome to reach out to our main office to share any questions you might have for our professors. The contact info is available here: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf