ELIOT’S OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE

A now famous term used by T. S. Eliot in an essay “On Hamlet” (1919). The relevant passage

is: 

“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”;

in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of

that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory

experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked”.

Eliot takes the great operas like Hamlet and Macbeth by Shakespeare that are consider tradition and he compares each other to study the use of objective correlative. For Eliot the function of it is hold together the language that expresses the emotions and the emotion itself. But Eliot says that Shakespeare didn't use the objective correlative exactly. In Macbeth, the moment when Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking while her emotions go out, the use of objective correlative is able to correlate the consciousness of LadyMacbeth and the audience. On the other hand in Hamlet during a time of madness, the words are too many and  the audience loose themself in this excess of words.

 In other terms a successful artistic creation requires an exquisite balance between, and

coalescence of form and matter. If the matter (thought, feeling, action) is “too much”,

(“in excess of”) the form (in this case words) we have a discrepancy, strain, a lack of unity

(that is insufficient correlation; they don’t “fadge”). Vice versa, another kind of discrepancy

and strain: the experience is overwhelmed by the words. 

THE WASTE LAND

Poema, monologo drammatico: è una forma che nasce con i poeti vittoriani, dove il poeta adotta una voce parlante che non coincidente con quella del poeta. Il lettore ha la sensazione di ascoltare questa voce drammatica.

 Il titolo: "waste" vuol dire sprecato, buttato o isolato. L'incontrario di isolato è fertile, dunque è un aggettivo che può riguardare sia la natura che l'uomo. Immagine che include sia il campo di una terra isolata sia della natura umana. È un titolo negativo.