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 analyzed the great tragedy of Shakespeare: Hamlet and Macbeth. In Macbeth Eliot identified a correct use of objective correlative when Shakespeare expressed lady Macbeth inability to content emotion through sleepwalking. In this way there was a chain of emotion between the auditorium and lady M.

In Hamlet Shakespeare was not able to have a good use about objective correlative because Hamlet's madness wasn't felt by auditorium. In this passage there were too many words which destabilized the balance necessary to express emotion via the language.

The objective correlative is a close relation between the language and language's expression with which emotion are transmitted.

In dramatic monologue the poet adopts a narrator or speaking voice not coincident with his. This technique allow the reader feels what happen in character's mind. It correspondence in narrative is the interior monologue.