T. S. Eliot's Objective Correlative and the Philosophy of F. H.

Bradley
Author(s): Armin Paul Frank
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Spring, 1972), pp. 311-
317
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 ARMIN PAUL FRANK

T. S. Eliot's Objective Correlative

and the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley

ELIOT'S IDEA of an objective correla- stantial evidence that Eliot knew the rele-
tive in art has been related to various vant essay of Bradley's well enough to quote
sources and parallel notions. It has been from it repeatedly in his dissertation, which
argued with relative success that the sourcehas been available for some time under the
of the concept (or of the term, as the case title, Knowledge and Experience in the Phi-
may be) is in Pound, Whitman, Baudelaire, losophy of F. H. Bradley.4
Washington Allston, Santayana, Husserl, It must be made clear at the outset that I
Nietzsche, Pater, Coleridge, Arnold, or in a am not looking for the term "objective cor-
"New England Commonplace." 1 Several relative" anywhere in Bradley's writings,
other parallelisms and echoes have been but for the basic idea denoted by it. It
compiled without such a claim of origin orshould also be kept in mind that in Bradley
influence;2 an Indian writer has explored itsthe context is a problem of knowledge orig-
connection with Sanskrit aesthetics.8 Still, inating in his metaphysic, whereas in Eliot
this list is in no way exhaustive. the frame of reference is that of poetics. It
I am not concerned here with weighing is inevitable that the differences between
the evidence brought forward in any one ofthe two disciplines in which the idea occurs
these cases; instead, I simply wish to suggest make for certain superficial differences in
that the most likely immediate source of the idea itself when transplanted from the
Eliot's notion is in the philosophy of one into the other context. But I do not
F. H. Bradley. There is no doubt that Brad- think that these differences blot out the
ley influenced Eliot in many ways. It has basic resemblance, especially since Eliot's
been known for a long time that Eliot held "objective correlative" in art is intimately
Bradley in high esteem; that he felt he and inextricably bound up with the prob-
owed a great deal to the British Idealist lem of knowledge.
philosopher; and that he wrote his doctoral Before I can profitably explore Bradley's
dissertation on an epistemological problem idea, I must briefly state my understanding
raised by Bradley's metaphysic. In fact, theof Eliot's formula. The key passage is, of
first clue for my claim that Eliot's "objective course, the following rule laid down in his
correlative" was indeed foreshadowed by an 1919 essay on Hamlet:
idea of Bradley's is provided by the circum- The only way of expressing emotion in the form
of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in
ARMIN PAUL FRANK is professor of American litera- other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain
ture at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, of events which shall be the formula of that par-
and author of a study of T. S. Eliot's literary ticular emotion; such that when the external
criticism, The Yearning for Indivisible Reality facts, which must terminate in sensory experience
(Munich: Fink Verlag, 1972). are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.5

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 312 ARMIN PAUL FRANK

This passage is perhaps too well known or sources upon which he

to be known well enough. It has, in my own emotional quandaries
opinion, been misinterpreted as providing athe writing:
tool of poetry criticism, and its applicabil-
Hamlet (the man) is dominate
ity to the kind of internal analysis of a
which is inexpressible, becaus
drama which Eliot performs on Hamlet is the facts as they appear. And
limited and not at all foolproof. Eliot tity of Hamlet with his autho
found that Hamlet overreacted, and he point: that Hamlet's bafflemen
took this trait as symptomatic of Shake- objective equivalent to his feel
tion of the bafflement of his creator in the face of
speare's artistic failure in writing this play. his artistic problem.
But a character's overreaction or underreac-
tion is the necessary condition of both The identification between Shakespeare
tragic catharsis and comic catastasis. What and Hamlet, which Eliot makes in this re-
would Shakespeare's tragedies be without spect, is important because it serves as a
an Othello, a Coriolanus, a Romeo, a Ju- bridge between statements which Eliot
liet? What would Moliere be without his makes about Hamlet and those he makes
hypochondriacs? What the Greek tragedies about Shakespeare, so that his assertions
without the hybris of the protagonists?about the one in this respect are also appli-
Eliot's idea fares best if one regardscable to the other.
it as
an injunction primarily directed at practic- The second important consideration is
ing poets, an admonition as to what immediatelythey connected with this problem
should concentrate on in the act of writing of identification: Whereas, in phrasing the
a poem, and if one looks at it in the light generalofprinciple, Eliot speaks in terms of
other relevant passages in Eliot's early ancriti-
objective correlative to an emotion, in
cal writings. By thus putting it into its formulating
con- the particular observation
text, the passage may lose somethingabout of itsHamlet he uses the words "objective
smooth persuasiveness which it mostly equivalent
owes to... feelings." But this termi-
to the magisterial tone of its phrasing nological
and differentiation is not in the least
to the blunt assumption-which seems to kept up consistently. Eliot uses his terms
make everything so easy-that the poet interchangeably, whether he refers to Ham-
starts out with an emotion which he has to let or to Shakespeare or to the artist in gen-
express. eral. The key terms shape up to the follow-
From the point of view of the present ing clusters in the one paragraph which is
investigation into the possible source of the central for the understanding of the "objec-
"objective correlative" it is, however, not tive correlative": (1) "Emotion," most fre-
necessary to extricate and explicate all the quently used, is twice replaced by "feeling"
intricacies and implications of Eliot's idea; and one time each by "feelings" and "state
nor is there any need to consider it criti- of mind." (2) "Correlative" has the follow-
cally. A mere descriptive survey of the out- ing synonyms: "equivalence" (twice),
standing elements is all that is here re- "equivalent" (twice), and "adequacy" (once
quired. in "complete adequacy of the external to
The first important observation is that in the emotion," as predicated about Mac-
the immediate context of this passage, Eliot beth). (3) "Objective," finally, is first used
identifies Hamlet with Shakespeare in one as denoting sensorially perceived objects,
respect: both are faced with an emotional "out there," as it were (as per William Car-
situation with which they cannot come to los Williams's "no ideas, but in things" 6); in
terms. Hamlet, as Eliot sees it, is dominated this sense, Eliot twice replaces it by "exter-
by feelings towards the guilt of his mother;nal." But it also has other connotations: It
but these feelings are of a kind and inten- once reappears as "adequate" in the for-
sity which the behavior of Gertrude does mula "adequate equivalent for it [Hamlet's
not warrant. Shakespeare, according to emotion of disgust]," and once as "exact" in
Eliot, in writing the play also came upon "exact equivalence." Finally, it occurs in
"intractable" material, both in the source the form "objectify."

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T. S. Eliot and F. H. Bradley 313

The last occurrence leads immediately of the catalyst. By using the first analogy to
into the analysis of the most crucial sen- describe the poet's activity, Eliot indeed in-
tences of all: Hamlet, realizing that his dicates his assumption that in the phase
mother's behavior does not justify his emo- leading up to the actual writing of a poem
tions towards her, finds himself, according the poet passively receives impressions from
to Eliot, in this situation: His disgust "is his reading and living experience. When
thus a feeling which he cannot understand; their agglomeration reaches the saturation
he cannot objectify it...." By thus taking point, when the divergent feelings become
Hamlet's point of view, Eliot sets up a basic fused in one feeling, the act of finding an
epistemic situation: A person (Hamlet) ob- "objective correlative" sets in. "The poet's
serves another (Gertrude) whose actions call mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and
up certain feelings in the observer which he, storing up numberless feelings, phrases, im-
however, cannot understand. In order to ages, which remain there until all the parti-
understand them, he would have to "objec- cles which can unite to form a new com-
tify" them by making them into "objects of are present together." 7 The "imper-
pound
his knowledge." sonal theory of poetic production," implied
Now, by the identification which Eliot in this statement and explicitly spelled out
made between Hamlet and Shakespeare in in the essay from which it is taken, is not,
this respect, the author, according to Eliot,in fact, incompatible with the expressionis-
finds himself in the same situation as Ham- tic view of the Hamlet essay. I suggest that
let: He, too, has a feeling-though presum- the following analogue be considered: In
ably not directed towards one single person the act of writing, the poet remains imper-
-and he cannot understand it. In other sonal and does not become emotionally en-
words, "Hamlet, like the sonnets, is full of tangled in his problem of "expressing," of
some stuff that the writer could not drag to objectifying emotion, but rather retains the
light, contemplate, or manipulate into art";aloof yet helpful attitude of a doctor who is
in short, Shakespeare, as Eliot thought, solely concerned with his professional prob-
could not make the mystery of his emo- lem of how to get the baby out. The anal-
tional state "intelligible," and therefore ogy, I submit, carries to the point where it
Hamlet is an artistic failure. is necessary to realize that in poetry the
That is to say: In describing the artistic roles of the obstetrician and the woman in
process in terms of the "objective correla- labor are cast with the same actor. Or, to
tive," Eliot interprets it as the artist's at-put it more literally, Eliot's early theory of
tempt at understanding his own emotions poetic production makes sense if one takes
and feelings. This realization is central to it as a "split personality" theory: Eliot ex-
the argument of the present paper. From plicitly rejects the "metaphysical theory of
this point of view, the questions of how the the substantial unity of the soul" and as-
feelings got there in the first place, and of sumes a split between "the man who suf-
what the reader will make of the finished fers" and "the mind which creates."
work are really secondary. Both these ques-As to the question of how far the reader
tions can be easily and briefly dealt withis implied in the "objective correlative,"
Eliot actually remains ambiguous in his
here, the first by referring to the important
companion piece to the Hamlet essay, "Tra-
Hamlet essay.8 The work of art should be
dition and the Individual Talent," which an "objective correlative," he says, so that
was serialized in the Egoist at the time the emotion which went into its making is
when "Hamlet and His Problems" ap- "immediately evoked"-immediately, that
peared in the pages of the Athenaeum. is to say, "without further reflection or
In that essay, Eliot described the artistic brainwork"; but "evoked" in whom? Nor-
process from quite a different point of viewmally, the spontaneous answer would be "in
and in the Imagist manner of setting two the reader"; for the complete aesthetic proc-
conflicting analogies up against each other: ess includes the possibility of communica-
the image of the receptacle (which simulta-tion. Indeed, most commentators discussing
neously functions as a compressor) and that the evocative aspect of the objective correla-

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 314 ARMIN PAUL FRANK

tive do so in terms which to

indicate that
sketch the basic they
position from which
take it for granted that theBradley
concept involves
proceeds in this essay. There is no
the reader.9 And certainlyneed it is asinto
to go a critical
his argument in detail, nor
reader that Eliot judges the success
is it necessary or fail- his reasoning in a
to consider
ure of Hamlet. But nevertheless he does not critical light; all that is required is to state
indicate anywhere in the Hamlet essay his the opinions which he held in relation to
belief that the objective correlative requires
this problem.
a reader for its completion, that its main As far as this particular epistemological
function is to enable the reader to "take problem is concerned, Bradley was con-
out" the emotion which the poet hasvinced "putof two things: first, that no intellec-
into" the literary work. tual activity, no manner of making distinc-
In fact, I do not think that the transac- tions and comparisons between objects of
tion of emotions is the primary business knowledge,
of could ever touch reality. Intel-
the objective correlative at all, as Eliot de-lectual activity superimposes artificial rela-
scribes it in his essay; rather, he delineatestions or abstractions upon a reality that is
the creative process as follows: The poet undivided. The world thus constructed by
has an "emotion"-a state of inarticulate, the intellect is one of appearances only; but
possibly conflicting attitudes, appetencies, for all practical purposes, objects of knowl-
or, perhaps, impulses-and he does not un- edge are workable ideas. They are unsatis-
derstand it. In order to reach an under- factory only from an absolute point of view.
standing of this emotional state, he strives Second, Bradley held that each act of
to find an adequate equivalent for it in a thinking was itself rooted in an undivided
world of objects. Eliot assumes that, once it state which he variously called "immediate
is found, it will immediately evoke that par- experience," "feeling," "felt emotion,"
ticular emotion, i.e., make that from which "emotion," or "direct awareness." All rela-
the "man" suffers transparent for the "intel- tions of the intellectual realm, he thought,
lect," make it intelligible in terms of the are merged in a non-relational whole. Ob-
world which the poet has found-and server and the observed are, as it were, one
founded-in the poem. To objectify an in observation. As Bradley saw it, every act
emotion, according to the Hamlet essay, of thought welled up from this whole.
means to make it accessible to contempla- Thinking and knowing transcend feeling
tion, understanding, knowledge.10 and grow beyond it without, however-and
In sum: According to Eliot's early view, this is the important twist-ever actually
the pre-phase of the poetic process leads leaving it behind. Feeling, as Bradley put
from the collection of impressions to the ag- it, "remains at the bottom throughout as
glutination of inarticulate emotion; the sec- fundamental." 12
ond, essential phase "transports" emotion Problem: How do the divisions and rela-
to an understanding of it in terms of a cor- tions of thought, how do the objects of
responding set of objects-which are "ob- knowledge (which presuppose a subject that
jects" both in the sense of "things" (insofar knows them) emerge from a "whole" that is
as they can be rendered by language) and of essentially relationless and undivided? Re-
"objects of knowledge"; the evocation of a lated is the problem of how feeling, though
corresponding understanding of the emo- essentially neither objective nor subjective,
tion in the reader remains an implied possi- may itself become an object of knowledge
bility, but is not a necessity. The central to a subject. Bradley was certain that it did.
concern for finding an "objective correla- After all, did it not hold a prominent place
tive" is a need of the artist: his urge to in his philosophic discourse? "... -we can
search for an understanding of his own speak about it [feeling], and, if so, it has be-
emotions or feelings. come for us an object." 13
This realization leads immediately to I do not ask the reader to accept Brad-
Bradley's essay "On Our Knowledge of Im- ley's reasoning on this point, especially
mediate Experience." 11 The best way of in- since I am convinced that after Bradley's
troducing the relevant problem is, I think, metaphysic got him into this dilemma, it

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T. S. Eliot and F. H. Bradley 315

did not provide any terms to get him outreal nature of the conduct which the object
again. Furthermore, I feel that when he did
suggests." What Bradley does at this point
try to solve it in his essay "On Our Knowl-
is to narrow the context even further: "My
edge of Immediate Experience," he actually
feeling" is directed toward one single object
destroyed the very foundation of his episte-
of my observation. This is about the point
mology and metaphysic. A demonstrationwhere my awareness that I have a feeling,
of this thesis is impossible within the con- my awareness of its mere existence, is trans-
fines of this paper since it is concerned with formed into a recognition of what this feel-
a different question. But the fact that Eliot,ing is, of what its content is. It is the point
too, sensed this dilemma is evident from his where diversification and division begin;
attempt, in his dissertation, to save "imme- consequently, my feeling becomes a plural-
diate experience" by a strategy of reasoningity: "my feelings." What is the situation
which is tangential to Bradley's and which now?
leads to a salvage in quite different terms. "We have here an object, perceived and
However this may be, the next step must thought of, and on the other side we have
be an analysis of the passage which, I think,dim uneasy feelings in myself which are not
foreshadows the "objective correlative." In objective and before me." At this point, a
this passage, Bradley makes one of his at- distinction seems to emerge: The person in
tempts to show that thinking and knowing regard to whom I have a certain attitude is
actually do arise from feeling. His question an objectl of my perception, is experienced
is: How do I give an intellectual account of through my senses; my feeling, not yet
feeling? At this particular point in his essay, objective, would, in becoming an object, ac-
Bradley admits that he is aware of such a tually belong to a different class: an object2
wealth of difficulties and complications thatarrived at by introspection, not by sense
he prefers to narrow and simplify the issueperception. But Bradley does not lay great
considerably: "But all that concerns us here store by such a common-sensical distinction.
is the case where the particular content, If I have objects of knowledge, he holds,
which lies in my feeling, is used in order tothey are objects of knowledge, assembled in
judge of an object before me." 14 the one realm of the conscious mind, and it
Two observations are important here: (1) does not matter where they originated.
Bradley has narrowed his problem to such Therefore he proceeds to that part of his
an extent as to take an already personalizedepistemological analysis which is analogous
feeling as his point of departure: "my feel-to the central point made in Eliot's exposi-
ing." This simplification, though evading tion concerning the objective correlative:
the issue of how feeling becomes personal-
Let, however, the object from any cause-an in-
ized in the first place, does not sidestep the stinctive action, a chance sensation or an oscilla-
other problem, which is more important in tion of emphasis-develop its content in a certain
this context: It still leaves feeling in its direction, and the situation may at once be
state of vagueness before I attend to it, be- changed. That which formerly was but felt in re-
fore I try to analyze it but simply am aware gard to the object has become now, also and as
well, a quality of the object. And it may satisfy
that I have it; it is indeed not yet an object us because it is the qualification which answers to
of knowledge. (2) The situation described what we felt and still feel.
in the above sentence corresponds to the
first phase of the account of the poetic proc- These are the operative sentences: Brad-
ess given above: There is a certain object ley here explains that a feeling becomes an
"before me" from which I, the observer, re- object of knowledge by projection onto an
ceive certain impressions; they, in turn, call object-of which the observer knows
up a certain feeling of which I am hardly through prior sense perception-and
aware. Bradley puts it this way: "If I shrink thereby becomes part of that object. In this
from or am attracted by some person, and epistemological process according to Brad-
do not know how this happens, I may en- ley, a feeling is objectified by becoming
deavour accurately to realize the detail of something that is tagged on to an object of
my feelings, and perhaps to discover the my knowledge, and yet feeling still remains.

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 316 ARMIN PAUL FRANK

There is a correlation between the two: I have already expressed my belief that
That new element projected onto Bradley's
the ob-philosophizing is self-defeating.
ject "answers" to my feeling which I stillIndeed, towards the end of his essay "On
have. Bradley does not say exactly how this
God and the Absolute," in which he surveys
happens; but he assumes a correlation be- some of the ultimate questions of his meta-
tween the two terms, a (state of) feeling physic and some of the results of his quest,
and, on the other hand, an object, sensori-
Bradley acknowledges the possibility that
ally experienced, and modified by projec- his philosophy may lead some readers to
tion. skepticism because they despair of ever
What does this epistemological model being able to attain positive knowledge.
have in common with Eliot's view of the For, according to Bradley, philosophy, to
artistic process? Both share the same charac-
the extent that it is an intellectual pursuit,
cannot but deal in unreal relations and ab-
teristic feature, the basic gesture, as it were:
A vague, inarticulate state of feeling is ex-
stractions, especially in its most thorough
pressed, is objectified, and therefore ren- form which for Bradley is metaphysic.
dered intelligible (i.e., capable of being un- Bradley, of course, denies that he arrived at
derstood) by being projected beyond itself pessimism; but it is quite conceivable that
into the sphere of "objects." The two proc- some such despair in philosophy was part of
esses necessarily differ because epistemologyEliot's motivation when he abandoned this
is concerned with knowing an object al- discipline soon after completing his doc-
ready perceived; therefore, the projection toral dissertation.
takes the form of tagging something on to Bradley, after thus reflecting on the possi-
an object which already exists. But insofarbly desperate outcome of his philosophy,
as this projection actually and objectively makes a most interesting gambit: He tries
modifies the object perceived, it may be to save truth, however skeptically
said to be incipiently creative. grounded. Our ideas, he says, are working
In artistic creation, on the other hand, ideas and "serve our living interests." Skep-
the product is usually considered to haveticism an will handle truths not in a dogmatic
ontological status different from that of em- spirit, but as preliminary, tentative find-
pirical objects. More specifically, in the ep- ings, and it will accept them as such. Any
istemic process described above, the "ob- claim on the part of common sense to have
jects" are of observation and of knowledge, the last word on any matter will be recog-
and both, for Bradley, constitute appear- nized as idle and ridiculous. Bradley con-
ances. In the poetic process as denoted by cludes:
the term "objective correlative," the "ob-
And, with this, there comes in principle an end to
jects" are of knowledge and things, as con-
the worship of abstractions, abstractions whether
cretely as language is capable of rendering of the school or of the market-place. And there
them, and in their relative concreteness comes the perception that prose and "fact" may
themselves stimuli of feelings. Poetry, for be fanciful in a more extravagant and in a lower
Eliot, fuses thought and feeling in a unified sense than poetry or art. Everything in short in
life will be tried, and condemned or justified,
sensibility. Thus, he thinks poetry capable solely on the ground of our highest human inter-
of escaping the Bradleyan diagnosis of in- ests.'6
tellection as "appearance" and hopes to
have found something which is both an ob-In the end, Bradley thus dipped the flag
ject of knowledge and a reality at the same of metaphysics to poetry in a gesture of dis-
time. One could say that for him poetry missing
is a his disciples into the realm of art.
form of knowing; it is sensuous thought, It is, therefore, quite plausible that Eliot,
"thoughtful" feeling, and not abstract in- who thoroughly knew the drift of Bradley's
tellection. philosophy and who kept this knowledge in
This view is not of Eliot's invention. In good repair over the years, should transfer
fact, it is immediately derived from some the of
idea from Bradley's metaphysical episte-
Bradley's ideas. I should like to indicate mology to the theory of artistic creation,
this line of development for my conclusion. especially since his view of the poetic proc-

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T. S. Eliot and F. H. Bradley 317

ess has a decidedly cognitive basis: The spective [Carbondale, Ill1., 1963]) and Joseph Hillis
need of understanding one's own feelings,Miller (Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Au-
thors [Cambridge, Mass., 1965], pp. 131-89) ex-
and of understanding them not as abstrac- plored aspects of Eliot's poetry and criticism in the
tions but as they really feel, is, according to light of his Bradley study. More recently, George
Eliot's opinion in 1919, the primary motiveWhiteside ("T. S. Eliot's Dissertation," ELH 34
of poetic production. [1967]: 400-24) presented a critical synopsis of Eliot's
dissertation, and John J. Soldo ("Knowledge and
Experience in the Criticism of T. S. Eliot," ELH 35
[1968]: 284-308) tried to align Eliot's dissertation
with Eliot's basic critical assumptions.
1 Cf. Mario Praz, "T. S. Eliot and Dante," SoR 2 5 Selected Essays, 3d ed. (London, 1951), p. 145.
(Winter 1937): 528-31; Sr. Mary Cleophas Costello, All subsequent references to this essay are to the
Between Fixity and Flux: A Study of the Concept immediate context of this passage, pp. 144-46.
of Poetry in the Criticism of T. S. Eliot (Washing- "The Delineaments of the Giants I," Patterson
ton, D.C., 1947), p. 66 n.; Ihab H. Hassan, "Baude- (Book One) (Norfolk, Conn., 1946), n.p.; frequently
laire's 'Correspondences': The Dialectic of a Poetic anthologized.
Affinity," French R 27 (May 1954): 444-45; Rene 7 Selected Essays, p. 18.
Wellek, "The Criticism of T. S. Eliot," SeR 14 8 In a 1955 letter to N. Chatterji, Eliot hedgingly
(Summer 1956): 418; B. R. McElderry, Jr., "Santa- and with qualifications said that what he may have
yana and Eliot's 'Objective Correlative,'" Boston meant by the "objective correlative" was that a
University Studies in English 3 (Autumn 1957): 178- work "as far as necessary communicates and renders
81; John M. Steadman, "Eliot and Husserl: The intelligible [the author's] feelings" (New Statesman
Origin of the 'Objective Correlative,'" N & Q, n.s. 69 [5 March 1965]: 361). But this statement was
5 (June 1958): 261-62; F. N. Lees, "T. S. Eliot and made long after Eliot had become a propagandistic
Nietzsche," N & Q, n.s. 11 (Oct. 1964); 387; David J. playwright and had modified his poetic accordingly.
DeLaura, "Pater and Eliot: The Origin of the 'Ob- In essays written shortly after "Tradition and the
jective Correlative,'" MLQ 26 (Sept. 1965): 426-31; Individual Talent" and "Hamlet," Eliot repeatedly
Pasquale di Pasquale, Jr., "Coleridge's Framework rejected the idea that the input and output of a
of Objectivity and Eliot's Objective Correlative," poem are identical (cf. The Sacred Wood, 2d ed.
JAA C 26 (1968): 489-500; Murray Krieger, "The [London, 1928], pp. 13, 170-71; most emphatically
Critical Legacy of M. Arnold, SoR, n.s. 5 (Spring in the 1928 Preface to this volume: "... the feeling,
1969): 458-59; John J. Duffy, "T. S. Eliot's Objective or emotion, or vision, resulting from the poem is
Correlative: A New England Commonplace," NEQ something different from the feeling or emotion or
42 (March 1969): 108-15. vision in the mind of the poet." Ibid., p. x).
2 Cf. Robert W. Stallman, The Critic's Notebook 9 Cf. Ants Oras, The Critical Ideas of T. S. Eliot
(Minneapolis, 1950), esp. pp. 116-20. (Tartu, 1932), pp. 15-18; F. O. Matthiessen, The
8 Krishna Rayan, "Rasa and the Objective Cor- Achievement of T. S. Eliot: An Essay on the Nature
relative," British Journal of Aesthetics 5 (1965): 246- of Poetry ([1935]; 3d ed., New York, 1959), esp. p.
60. 58; M. Praz, "Eliot/Dante," esp. pp. 528-31; Eliseo
4 (London, 1964). As early as 1938, R. W. Church Vivas, "The Objective Correlative of T. S. Eliot"
discussed Eliot's dissertation ("Eliot on Bradley's (1944), Creation and Discovery (New York, 1955), pp.
Metaphysics," Harvard Advocate 125 [Dec. 1938]: 175-90; H. Kenner, Invisible Poet, esp. p. 87; J. H.
24-26). Nevertheless, critics were tardy in following Miller, Poets of Reality, p. 154.
up this clue. Despite Kristian Smidt's three para- 10 In a wonderfully pertinent passage in his dis-
graphs on Bradley in his Poetry and Belief in the sertation, Eliot used "objectify" in this sense when he
Work of T. S. Eliot (Oslo, 1949), pp. 32-33, and the wrote: "... we know that those highly-organized
chapter entitled "Bradley" in Hugh Kenner's The beings who are able to objectify their passions, and
Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot (1960; 2d ed. London, as passive spectators to contemplate their joys and
1965), pp. 35-59, I think it is fair to say that no torments, are also those who suffer and enjoy the
really detailed scrutiny of the Bradley-Eliot relation- most keenly." Knowledge, p. 23.
ship has been made before 1962. The first more U Essays on Truth and Reality (Oxford, 1914),
thorough investigations were Lewis Freed's T. S. pp. 159-91; Appendix and Supplementary Note, pp.
Eliot: Aesthetics and History (LaSalle, Ill., 1962) and 192-201.
E. P. Bollier's "T. S. Eliot and F. H. Bradley: A " Ibid., p. 161.
Question of Influence," Tulane Studies in English 1 Ibid., p. 160.
12 (1967): 87-111; both scholars were, however, not "Ibid., p. 181; all quotations in the next four
yet able to examine the dissertation itself. Later, paragraphs are from the same page.
Eric Thompson (T. S. Eliot: The Metaphysical Per- 16 Ibid., pp. 445-46.

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