📢 Welcome to a New Chapter: "The Daily Lit-Term" Series

Greetings, fellow literature enthusiasts and aspirants!

If you are navigating the vast ocean of English Literature—whether for the love of the written word or to clear competitive hurdles like UGC NET, SET, or GATE—you know that the "language of criticism" is often more complex than the literature itself.

To bridge this gap, I am excited to launch a new series: "One Day, One Term." Every day, we will deconstruct one high-yield literary term. We won't just look at the dictionary definition; we will look at the history, the controversies, the exam relevance, and the "why" behind it.

Let’s kick off Day 1 with a concept that changed the way we look at modern poetry and drama.

📘 Day 1: Objective Correlative

The Science of Evoking Emotion

If there is one term that defines 20th-century Modernist criticism, it is the Objective Correlative. For many students, it sounds like a complex term from a physics lab, but in reality, it is a simple "formula" for how writers communicate feelings to their readers.

1. What is the Objective Correlative? (In Simple Terms)

In our daily lives, we often find it hard to explain how we feel. A poet faces the same challenge. If a poet simply says, "I am very sad," the reader might believe them, but the reader won't feel that sadness.

T.S. Eliot argued that emotion cannot be "dumped" directly from the writer’s heart onto the page. Instead, the writer must find a physical equivalent for that emotion.

The Indian Context Analogy: Think of a classic scene in an Indian monsoon setting. If a director wants to evoke the feeling of "yearning" or viraha, they show you the dark clouds, the sound of raindrops on a tin roof, and perhaps a flickering lamp. They don't need a voiceover to say "she is missing him." The objects (clouds, rain, lamp) are the objective correlative for the emotion of yearning.

2. The Historical Origin: Allston to Eliot

While we associate this term almost exclusively with T.S. Eliot, he did not invent the phrase.

• Washington Allston: The term was first used by the American painter and poet Washington Allston in the mid-19th century (around 1840) in his Lectures on Art. He used it to describe how the external world mirrors our internal spirit.
• T.S. Eliot’s Adoption: Eliot rescued this term from obscurity and introduced it to the literary world in his famous 1919 essay, "Hamlet and His Problems." This essay was part of his collection The Sacred Wood.

3. The "Hamlet" Controversy (Must-Know for Exams)

This is the most famous part of the theory. Eliot used the "Objective Correlative" as a yardstick to measure the quality of William Shakespeare’s plays. To the shock of the literary world, Eliot called Hamlet an "artistic failure."

Why?
Eliot believed that in a successful work of art, there must be a perfect balance between the emotion of the character and the external facts of the plot.

• In Macbeth, the emotion of guilt is perfectly "correlated" to the physical act of Lady Macbeth trying to wash blood off her hands. The blood is the formula for the guilt.
• In Hamlet, Eliot argues that Hamlet is gripped by an intense emotion (disgust/madness) that is "in excess of the facts."

According to Eliot, Gertrude (the mother) is a "negative" and insignificant character. Her actions do not justify the extreme psychological breakdown that Hamlet experiences. Because Shakespeare couldn't find a physical "object" or "situation" that matched Hamlet's internal feelings, the play remains an artistic failure.

4. Why is this term so relevant?

The Objective Correlative is more than just a definition; it represents a shift in literary history:

1. Impersonality of Poetry: Eliot famously said, "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion." This term supports his idea that the poet should be a scientist or a craftsman, not a "romantic" who just cries on paper.
2. Modernist Precision: It encouraged modern poets like Ezra Pound and Eliot himself to use "concrete images" rather than "abstract words."
3. Reader's Response: It explains why we react to art. We react because the "formula" (the objects) triggers a psychological response in us.

Examples in Literature:

• The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot): To show the spiritual emptiness of the modern world, Eliot uses images like "dry bones," "rats' alley," and "dust." These are objective correlatives for a decaying civilization.
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: When Prufrock says his life is "measured out with coffee spoons," the coffee spoons are the objective correlative for a boring, meaningless, middle-class existence.

5. Summary Table for Quick Revision

Feature	Details
Critic	T.S. Eliot (1919)
Essay	Hamlet and His Problems
Core Idea	Emotion must be expressed through physical objects/situations.
Original Source	Washington Allston
Major Critique	Called Hamlet an "artistic failure" due to lack of OC.
Key Phrase	"Emotion in excess of the facts."

📝 Test Your Knowledge: Practice MCQs

Now, let's see how much you’ve retained. These questions are designed based on the pattern of UGC NET and SET exams.

I hope this deep dive helps you master the "Objective Correlative" once and for all!