Searching for a literary term

[mechanicalchris]

I once stumbled across a term that refers to a physical object that acts as a symbol. i.e. In Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" the portrait is a physical representation of Dorian's soul. I am trying to remember the specific term that describes this device.

[Logos]

inanimate object = personification
animal = anthropomorphism

:)

[Whifflingpin]

Analogue?

[kiki1982]

manifestation?

[Pompey Bum]

I think you are looking for the term referent.

[mechanicalchris]

Thanks for the advice guys. These aren't it though. It's a two-word phrase that specifically talks about when an object represents something in the story. i.e. the flower in Beauty & The Beast wilts.

The literary phrase had it's own wiki page. It was something like "objective fiction metonymy" (but not metonymy, I'm just giving an example)

[Pompey Bum]

Symbol thingy?

[Jackson Richardson]

I'm hopeless at crossword clues. I'll await the outcome here with interest. I'm sure there's something, but I can't for the life of me think what it is. I'll know it when I hear it.

[mal4mac]

Objective correlative?

T.S. Eliot:
“ 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."

Example:

A haiku by Yosa Buson entitled, The Piercing Chill I Feel, illustrates the use of objective correlative within poetry:

The piercing chill I feel:
my dead wife’s comb, in our bedroom,
under my heel…

[Jackson Richardson]

I think that was the term at the back of my mind.