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Borrowed from musicology (particularly Wagnerian opera), a leitmotif in literature is a short, recurring phrase, image, or musical-style element that becomes associated with a particular character, idea, or emotion. It differs from a general motif in its specificity and its almost musical quality of return and variation. Marcel Proust’s use of the “little phrase” of Vinteuil’s sonata in In Search of Lost Time is a literary leitmotif.
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