Crossword Genius

Subject referred to in article, absorbs and uplifts first person (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

theme

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'subject' is the definition.
(theme can mean a topic or subject)

'referred to in article absorbs and uplifts first person' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'article' could be 'the' (the definite article in English) and 'the' is located in the answer.
'first person' could be 'me' (first-person pronoun) and 'me' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for theme that I've seen before include "subject,motif" , "Unifying motif" , "Thread, melody" , "Subject (of talk, text, etc)" , "Motif - 4 across" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.
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