1. Symbol: something that represents something else.
In the simplest sense, anything that stands for or
represents something else beyond it---usually an idea conventionally
associated with it. Objects like flags and crosses can function symbolically;
and words are also symbols. In the semiotics of C.S. Peirce, the term denotes a
kind of sign that has no natural or resembling connection with its referent,
only a conventional one: this is the case with words. In
literary usage, however, a symbol is a specially evocative kind of image (see
imagery); that is, a word or phrase referring to a concrete object, scene, or
action which also has some further significance associated with it: roses,
mountains, birds, and voyages have all been used as common literary
symbols. A symbol differs from a metaphor in that its
application is left open as an unstated suggestion: thus in the sentence
She was a tower of strength, the metaphor ties a concrete image (the 'vehicle':
tower) to an identifiable abstract quality (the tenor: strength). Similarly, in
the systematically extended metaphoric parallels of allegory, the images
represent specific meanings: at the beginning of Langland's allegorical poem
Piers Plowman ( c .1380), the tower seen by the dreamer is clearly identified
with the quality of Truth, and it has no independent status apart from this
function. But the symbolic tower in Robert Browning's poem '"Childe Roland to
the Dark Tower Came"' (1855), or that in W.B. Yeats's collection of poems The
Tower (1928), remains mysteriously indeterminate in its possible meanings. It is
therefore usually too simple to say that a literary symbol 'stands for' some
idea as if it were just a convenient substitute for a fixed meaning; it is
usually a substantial image in its own right, around which further significances
may gather according to differing interpretations. The term
symbolism refers to the use of symbols, or to a set of related symbols; however,
it is also the name given to an important movement in late 19th-century and
early 20th-century poetry: for this sense, see symbolists. One of the important features of Romanticism and succeeding phases
of Western literature was a much more pronounced reliance upon enigmatic
symbolism in both poetry and prose fiction, sometimes involving obscure private
codes of meaning, as in the poetry of Blake or Yeats. A well-known early
example of this is the albatross in Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner' (1798). Many novelists---notably Herman Melville and D.H.
Lawrence---have used symbolic methods: in Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) the White
Whale (and indeed almost every object and character in the book) becomes a focus
for many different suggested meanings. Melville's extravagant symbolism was
encouraged partly by the importance which American Transcendentalism gave to
symbolic interpretation of the world.
(from Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Baldick, Chris, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. x, 361 p. Extracted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, originally published in 2008 as a book by Oxford University Press.)
2. Literary Symbolism: A symbol usually conveys an abstraction or cluster of abstractions, from the ideal to the imperceptible or the irrational, in a more concrete from. Unlike an arbitrary symbol such as a letter or traffic sign, a symbol in literature usually carries richer and more varied meanings, as does a flag or religious image.
3. Traditional Symbols and Archetypes
Traditional Symbols: a white dove as a symbol of peace and love, a rose godly love, romantic desire, female beauty, mortality, hidden cruelty.
Archetypes: literary elements that recur in the literature and myths of multiple cultures
4. Allegory and Myth
Allegory: an "extended" symbol or series of symbols that encompasses a whole book. Concrete things and abstract concepts may be associated with each other across a narrative that consistently maintains at least two distinct levels of meaning
Myth: a story of communal origin that provided an explanation or religious interpretation of humanity, nature, the universe, or the relations among them
Key Figures of Speech: allegory, allusion, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, personification, simile, symbol, and synecdoche