Decoding Symbolism and Metaphor in Literature with Artificial Intelligence
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Symbol and metaphor are significant literary devices that enhance the strength of a story, add deeper meaning, and appeal to the sentiment that goes beyond a literal reading of each word. The capacity of AI to read and process millions of pages of textual data makes the field of literature more accessible to the information-seeking internet population than any human scholar can afford to. Sentiment and topic modeling analyses of the data can also be performed with the help of AI while different metaphorical nodes can be visualized in order to further identify the meaning subtexts, including hidden messages. Another significant issue with AI subtitling nuances and rhetoric is that it is not particularly subtlety, but rather the ambiguity of the devices. Apparently controlling the fine-tuning of AI models, though, since metaphorical treatment of language removes most of context saturated in cultural, historical and linguistic context. Multimodal AI, which encodes textual inputs with their visual and contextual surroundings, has advanced interpretive fidelity. Therefore, the partnership between literary scholars and AI researchers would play a significant role in developing the algorithms and advancing the prompts for analysis of metaphors. The use of AI-powered literary analysis may even extend outside the boundaries of academia and transform industries such as education and publishing. AI-powered Tools reading through works of literature and breaking things down can help students as well as researchers develop a deeper understanding of things that normal reading would not result in. Similarly, though, creative writing; Some but AI could help poke through to more unusual uses of some metaphor, symbolism that enrich a narrative.
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7203684972