The Objective correlative

A now famous term used by T.S.Eliot in an essay Hamlet (1919). The relavant passage is (the only way of expressing emotions in the form of art is by finding an objective correlative; in other words, a sets of object, a situation, a change of event which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when te external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoke).

Eliot goes on to sugest that in Lady Macbeth’s slep walking speech in the speech that Macbeth makes when he hears of his wife’s death, the words are completely adequate to the state of mind; whereas in Hamlet the prince is (dominate by a state of mind which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear).

These observations have provoked a good deal of debate. In other terms a successful artistic creation requires an exquisite balance and coalescence of form and matter. If the matter ( thoughts, feelings, actions) is “too much”, (in excess of”) the form (words) we have a discrepance, strain a lack of unity (that is insufficient correlation they don’t “fudge”). Vice versa, another kind of discrepance and strain, the experience is overwhelmed by the words. Colloquially we say (I was speechless), (it was indescribable). In other words we have not found “formula”. In reverse, lacking the formula “again” we over-describe, say too much.