Subtext

Subtext is the hidden, inner meaning of an utterance or a whole work that is not expressed directly but only implied and guessed by the reader behind the outer, literal plane of the text. Subtext arises from deliberate understatement, hint, pause, a psychological detail behind which a deeper content is read than is communicated by the words. It makes a literary work multidimensional, draws the reader into co-creation, prompting them to supply the unsaid. A master of subtext (the "undercurrent") in drama and prose is considered to be Anton Chekhov; in Ukrainian literature a subtle psychological subtext is characteristic of the short stories of Vasyl Stefanyk and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. Subtext is closely linked to psychologism, laconism and the suggestiveness of artistic speech and belongs to the key categories of poetics.