An Analysis of the Application of Impersonal Theory in The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot Based on Objective Correlatives

Abstract

In The Waste Land, Thomas Sterns Eliot turned his own emotions into “objective correlatives” that can be engaged and experienced with, making his subjective mental activities objective through objective existence and making it possible for the audience to enter the mental world of his. These objective correlatives lead different readers into a shared piece of memory, which is the universal traumatic memory of people from western countries after World War I. The common memories awaken a universal psychological feeling of decadence, numbness and desperation. Eliot had a significant influence on New Criticism and Impersonal Theory. As he put it, authors can express a universal truth through intense personal experience and maintain the uniqueness of its experience with the aim of making it a universal symbol. The formation of this universal symbol is the process of the mutual integration of subjectivity and objectivity. It’s also the process of the rise of personal emotions to universal ones, which is the ultimate artistic effect in Eliot’s impersonal and objective correlative theory. This paper will explain the application of impersonal theory in poetry, explain how the artistic emotions in poetry are impersonal and explain how the historical tradition works as a common background for poets by analyzing the objective correlatives in The Waste Land. It’s through objective correlatives that the poet rationally expresses this artistic emotion.