Making emotion linguistically intelligible : the objective correlative in poetic language

Abstract

Emotion is considered private and difficult to communicate in poetic language. The view results from mistaking the meaning of words strictly as the objects they denote. By synthesising Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of language as public practice and T. S. Eliot’s concept of the objective correlative, it follows that emotion can be communicated in poetic language through constructing the correct objective correlative for it. In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein demonstrates the multiplicity and publicness of language. Following this framework, emotion can be communicated when the rules of language-games are followed. The concept of the objective correlative, introduced by Eliot in Hamlet and His Problems, follows the rules of language-games in poetry and commits to the publicness of language and emotion. Examples from Eliot’s The Waste Land and Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night further illustrate how the objective correlative succeeds when it embeds itself in public practices and the shared form of life. As a result, this synthesised framework provides a practical guideline for communicating emotion in poetic language.