The
objective correlative

(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.)

T.S.
Eliot used for the first time the objective correlative in his
version of Hamlet(1919).
Eliot used objective correlative in Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking
speech
and
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 "dominated by a state of mind which 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 between coalescence of a form and
matter. If the matter (thought, feeling, action) is "too much",
("in excess of") the form (words) we have a discrepancy, a
streak, a lack of unity (that is insufficient correlation, they don't
"fudge"). Another kind of discrepancy and strain, the
experience is overwhelmed by the words. Colloquially we say "I
was speechless", "it was unspeakable". In other words
we have not found the "formula". In reverse, lacking the
formula again we over describe, say too much.