Monday, February 7, 2011

the Objective Correlative

This is the literary term I mentioned to you in class. When you read or experience the storm scene in King Lear you will sense how the storm itself is an extraordinarily powerful objective correlative.
So, get to the storm scene!

Objective Correlative: An outward set of objects, a situation, or a chain of events corresponding to an inward experience and evoking this experience in the reader. The term frequently appears in modern criticism in discussions of authors' intended effects on the emotional responses of readers.
This term was originally used by T. S. Eliot in his 1919 essay "Hamlet."

2 comments:

  1. I believe an objective correlative in the play so far is shakespears refrence to the stars and the universe, an how everything in the their surroundings are changing because of king Lears's actions. The most importation objective correlative so far is the eclipse in the sky, which I think is symbolic.

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  2. I think the essay we have to write have to do with the things that are happening in the world, for example, situations like storms and earthquakes that we can make a comparison or contrast to King Lear and Shakespheare's work.

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