objective correlative

noun

: something (such as a situation or chain of events) that symbolizes or objectifies a particular emotion and that may be used in creative writing to evoke a desired emotional response in the reader

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

For the rest of us, the year was mainly defined by a months-long runny nose, a sort of objective correlative for our now-permanent sense of dread. —oregonlive, 21 Dec. 2022

Saturday’s march is the objective correlative of that. —David Zurawik, baltimoresun.com, 23 Mar. 2018

Word History

Etymology

Note: As a literary term introduced by T. S eliot in the essay "Hamlet and His Problems," The Athenaeum, no. 4665, September 26, 1919, p. 941. In a more general philosophical sense the phrase was used by Washington allston in a posthumously published "Lecture on Art" (Lectures on Art, and Poems, New York, 1850, p. 16).

First Known Use

1919, in the meaning defined above