I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

-Rochdale
  English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, l.5^6.

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

-Denham, SirJohn
  Of the Thames. Cooper's Hill, l.189^92.

Thetheme defeatsstructuralism, for it isanemotion.The theme of Lord of the Flies isgrief, sheer grief, grief, grief, grief.

-Golding, Sir William (Gerald)
  'Moving Target'.

Ye holyangels bright, Who wait at God's right hand, Or through the realms of light Flyat your Lord's command, Assist our song, Or else the theme too high doth seem For mortal tongue.

-Gurney,John Hampden
  'Ye Holy AngelsBright', basedon a poemby RichardBaxter (1615^91).

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. 564

-Melville, Herman
Moby Dick, ch.104.

The grand manner consists of four elements: subject or theme, concept, structure, and style. The first requirement, fundamental to all the others, is that the subject and the narrative be grandiose, such as battles, heroic actions, and religious themes.

-Poussin, Nicolas
Quoted in Giovanni Pietro Bellori Lives of the Modern Painters (1672).

Rise not till noon, if life be but a dream, As Greek and Roman poets have exprest: Add good example to so grave a theme, For he who sleeps the longest lives the best.

-Prior, Matthew
'Epigram'. (Date unknown. In Matthew Prior: LiteraryWorks, edited by H B Wright and M K Spears, 2 vols,1959.)

My theme is always humanistic. Life today is junglelike†it is complex, it is inhuman in its materialism.

-Wilson, SirAngus FrankJohnstone
  Letter to David Farrer, his publisher, Jul. Quoted in Margaret Drabble AngusWilsonöA Biography (1995).

Either still I find Some imperfection in the chosen theme, Or see of absolute accomplishment Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself, That I recoil and droop, and seek repose In listlessness from vain perplexity, Unprofitably travelling towards the grave.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.1, l.261^7 (published1850).