Why does a literary work employ motifs?—a question that arose in a discussion of Macbeth. That a given commonplace (topos) will show up in a variety of works is no surprise; that is only to say that there is such a thing as a commonplace. My question is about repetition within a single work. And I do not mean repetition in the strict sense, as of a particular musical phrase, or not only that; I am interested in repetition with variation, which may be as indefinite as the appearances of an image that recurs more or less recognizably, in words that are related but not necessarily the same.

Let me use “idea” for anything that, repeated, may become a motif. (I don’t know if anyone else uses it with that meaning.) An idea repeated, even if only once, will have certain formal or structural functions, such as linking one place with another, providing balance (as when in a painting one bit of color works with another bit elsewhere), and indicating a division into sections. In addition, it may give pleasure simply because the enjoyment of repetition is innate in us. Neither of these roles is what I am after; I am interested in our profit.

In Plato’s Meno, by putting questions to a boy Socrates leads him through a geometrical investigation to a discovery, that the square on the diagonal of a given square has twice the area of that square. Having done so, he observes that the boy now has “true opinions,” though not yet knowledge, about geometry, and continues:

And at this moment those opinions have just been stirred up in him, like a dream; but if he were repeatedly asked these same questions in a variety of forms, you know he will have in the end as exact an understanding of them as anyone. (85c–d, trans. Lamb)

He must be asked “repeatedly” and “in a variety of forms,” pollakis and pollakhe, lit. “many times” and “in many ways.” In other words, the way to understanding is repetition with variation: that is how we learn.

Now can it be that motifs, in the general sense I have chosen, teach us? But what is to be taught, apart from commonplaces, in a work like Macbeth? Well, we have to learn the characters in their circumstances. The courses of their thoughts, their words, their deeds, are not easily grasped. Does it matter, for example, that having slain his enemy, Macbeth “fix’d his head upon our battlements”? Several things are here related in a single incident; let us consider two of them, Macbeth and fixity. Presently he wonders, “why do I yield to that suggestion / Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair…?” We begin to feel that fixity, affirmed or denied, has some association with Macbeth; this is further suggested in his interaction with his wife, and we are confirmed in our impression when, on his way to kill the king, he calls upon the “sure and firm-set earth” for cooperation. Afterward he will strive continually to be securely fixed in his place, but a moving wood will signal his end, and at last his own head will leave his shoulders. As we are conducted by the motif of fixity, we learn more and more about Macbeth, and of the state of things generally; indeed, the example I happened to choose may attain the dignity of a theme, in a drama where nature itself is uncertain.

Why do we have to be taught in this way? Because “There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face.” If “face” is what is meant to be seen, it is quite limited, and can even be controlled so as to prevent revelation, as Lady Macbeth exhorts her husband to do; but there is also what shows itself willy-nilly, which may be extensive, but because it is not readily available, can be impressed upon us only gradually, many times in many ways, like facts of geometry upon the boy. “And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, / With windlasses and with assays of bias, / By indirections find directions out.”

A motif develops as the work goes on, and we might say informally that it evolves. More formally, I note that repetition with variation is one of the core principles of evolution. I wonder, could it be that in a long work (Proust?) variants of a given idea can be found to vie with one another for effectiveness, and persist accordingly?

Postscript (merely a result of reading Macbeth). The other day a glance at a newspaper page showed me a small photo of a man with a dark beard. Closer inspection revealed that it was a woman in a black mask. This suggests that, misled by the murky air, Banquo’s perception of the witches was at fault: these are socially responsible ladies, masked to avoid acquiring or transmitting “infected minds” such as the Doctor will recognize; and their caution is the more necessary in view of Macbeth’s curse, “Infected be the air whereon they ride.”