Literary motifs

thumb|''Napoleon's Exile on [[Saint Helena by Franz Josef Sandman (1820)]] thumb|The First Night in Exile – This painting comes from a series illustrating the Ramayana'', a Hindu epic poem. It depicts prince Rama, who is wrongly exiled from his father's kingdom, accompanied only by his wife and brother. thumb|Dante in Exile by Domenico Petarlini

cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers, important motif in Arthurian literature

thumb|300px|Leitmotif associated with Siegfried's horn call in Richard Wagner's 1876 opera, Siegfriedcenter

dichotomy in religion, ethics, and philosophy

motif in northern European folk myth

A homunculus ( , , ; "little person", : homunculi , , ) is a small artificial human or human-like being. Popularized in 16th-century alchemy and 19th-century fiction, it has historically been referred to as the creation of a miniature, fully formed human or humanoid being. The concept has roots in preformationism as well as earlier folklore and alchemic traditions.

literary term; any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story

cultural motif

mythological hero specific to some group

literary topos

motif in folklore and mythology

Paraklausithyron () is a motif in Greek and especially Augustan love elegy, as well as in troubadour poetry.

metaphor for the inaccessibility of nature's secrets

In semiotics, a parergon (paˈrərˌgän; plural: parerga) is a supplementary issue or embellishment. The term's usage has broadened to mean anything that is additional to the main body of a creative work.

plot device

narrative motif documented in Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature

anime and manga trope