Objective non-correlative

Washington Allston coined the phrase “■objective correlative” in his ■Lectures on Art. Must have been, with his painter’s brush for his primary tool, he looked to a vegetable, judged on human emotion, and wrote,

Take an example from one of the lower forms of organic life,— a common vegetable. Will any one assert that the surrounding inorganic elements of air, earth, heat, and water produce its peculiar form? Though some, or all, of these may be essential to its development, they are so only as its predetermined correlatives, without which its existence could not be manifested; and in like manner must the peculiar form of the vegetable preexist in its life, — in its idea, — in order to evolve by these assimilants its own proper organism.

No possible modification in the degrees or proportion of these elements can change the specific form of a plant, ― for instance, a cabbage into a cauliflower; it must ever remain a cabbage, small or large, good or bad. So, too, is the external world to the mind; which needs, also, as the condition of its manifestation, its objective correlative. Hence the presence of some outward object, predetermined to correspond to the preexisting idea in its living power, is essential to the evolution of its proper end, ― the pleasurable emotion.

There have come to exist theories and even some practice, on vegetables and light: veg purportedly may become sweeter under red or blue auras of choice ― but the cost of the enlightenment might hatchet production. Besides, people who harbor feelings particularly vindictive about music, would maintain that tune playing elevates plant mood.

Had there been affect for all living matter generally to have, the feeling would be nonsense. A plant would harbor it in order to become crunched, sliced, ground, juiced, or straightforwardly to be thrown into hot boiling water, because at the time of consumption or before cooking plants are biologically a living matter: a vegetable to have died a natural death is not suitable for eating, unless it is dried parsley tops or another spice.

Plants yet do not have nervous systems — fortunately, otherwise a salad would be an act of purposed cruelty. The fact was known in the times of Mr. Allston, but he would seek relevance for veg outside meal times, naming pleasure for the goal of evolution.

All along it remains obvious, and I put the matter to note solely for the purpose of summing up before I proceed, that literature does not pre-exist; poems and novels become when authors create them, and they might be predetermined only if commissioned, for the market.

Gogh would have given the world paintings of poplars that might bring can-can to mind, whereas it should be emphasized here, the thing remains gossip only, on Monet having accustomed some of his canvas in ways suggestive. There is nothing to ratiocinate out of the thing here without Picasso, and Picasso is a yet another idea.

I like impressionist brushes and their composition of color, so I think, even if they tried things like that, it was most probably to sell paintings, hence maybe even such a trick. This is not what I learn, and I am obviously not going to use such ideas. Brushes and splotches alone are exquisite on their own, in the method.

T.S. Eliot picked the theme of a correlate and endeavored to make the jacket for the potato. In Hamlet and His Problems he stated,
Hamlet is a stratification, (…) it represents the efforts of a series of men, each making what he could out of the work of his predecessors. The Hamlet of Shakespeare will appear to us very differently if, instead of treating the whole action of the play as due to Shakespeare’s design, we perceive his Hamlet to be superposed upon much cruder material which persists even in the final form.

Again, it needs emphasis here that the gossip remains without proof, about Shakespeare having used the figure of Hamlet as means to depict male intimate inability indeed. I translate , “jak starali się inni przed nim” (the work of his predecessors), since Eliot’s intention is a much cruder material here (znacznie mniej wyszukany materiał) whereas Shakespeare’s design is pushed aside. We would be expected to perceive the character without heed to the author’s plan, instead of treating the whole action of the play as due to Shakespeare’s design.

■This text is also available in Polish.

In his critical endeavors, Eliot referred to the ■thing theory and the ■pathetic fallacy. We begin to confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us, wrote  ■Bill Brown. His thing would have thus been inert and useless, as with Eliot.

The pathetic fallacy would refuse to understand what a verb is. Proponents claim, Such fallacy is a kind of personification in poetic descriptions where clouds are sullen, leaves dance, or rocks seem indifferent. If we think about the verb ■to dance alone and spring, tree leaves under a fresh wind will, with a breeze from a side, shoot with reflexes of light and color — dance. Eliot would place dance with immobility, ■At the Still Point of the Turning World.

This far, the critical matter would have been about a bit of canvas frivolity maybe, about things as tools, or book characters, yet is was Eliot who added in his endeavor,
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. Here, the matter is suggestive of a human being.

Talk about pre-existence of literature is odd, more, for the mind to manifest itself; it is just as odd to expect that a human being would have instantaneous emotion, more, pleasurable as well as elicited, and produced with a chain of events. Even if we were to suspect some ■RF, it would be capable of some concomitants, those never to be the person’s own, or it could be some vegetative state in a person. One or the other, the thing is very far from own pleasurable feelings.

Well, both the gentlemen had own emotionally difficult times. Allston’s wife died, “leaving him saddened, lonely, and homesick”, according to ■Jay B. Hubell, whereas Eliot reportedly suffered from ■abulia, otherwise termed a ■sickly weakening of the will. Own emotional condition is not a correlate to the person, it is his or her own inner state; and statistics will run objectively high, for the influence such a state has on him or her, hence the objective non-correlative in the title of this post. The original phrase for the pathetic fallacy was reportedly “emotional falseness”, thus it might have been that clouds were smiling on Mr. Ruskin too, only nobody told him.

With regard to correlates and a reader well practiced, who both the gentlemen arguably were, I associate an object of quiet envy perhaps, Emily Dickinson, only not in those dash overloaded versions that readers are presented with today. Her poetry has been source of intellectual pleasure to me, without “those things” of course.

Feel welcome to compare ■a correlative for Emily Dickinson and Aristotle.

Looking to her poetry we could tell that an objective correlative avoids projection; it directs itself by the matter of mind and language. The object of thought may be living, there yet may not be any particular use or manner to act; the object of thought may have nothing to do with us, and draw our attention only for a moment or while. The role of the agens and patiens is scarce, because thinking is not doing anything to, or about the object of thought.

After all, when a thought takes one’s breath away, wrote about Dickinson’s ■Poems Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was — or so it seems? — a ■translator too. Feel welcome to my Notes, as I do agree all so much with critics on grammar.

■This text is also available in Polish.

Notes for Emily Dickinson’s poetry

Poems
Life | Love | Nature | Time and Eternity