objective correlative

American  

noun

Literature.

1. a completely depicted situation or chain of events that objectifies a particular emotion in such a way as to produce or evoke that emotion in the reader.

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Etymology

Origin of objective correlative

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

It’s a sentimental story about love, work and friendship, meaningfully set against the backdrop of gaming — a subject which fiction too often treats as a narrative gimmick, objective correlative or some other transient device.

From New York Times • Dec. 24, 2022

Auden once said, “to this day, I have never understood exactly what the objective correlative is.”

From Washington Post • Jan. 5, 2022

In “Homeland’s” case, it’s not for lack of material; if anything, as we approach 20 years of the war on terror, the series’ continued relevance has become an objective correlative of the conflict’s endlessness.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 7, 2020

But mothers, God bless them, mastered the art of recognising the objective correlative long before TS Eliot noticed it in James Joyce.

From The Guardian • Jan. 1, 2016

So, too, is the external world to the mind; which needs, also, as the condition of its manifestation, its objective correlative.

From Lectures on Art by Allston, Washington