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⚫ '''Edward Morgan Forster''' (], ] - ], ]) was an English ], born in ], the son of an architect. He was to have been named Henry, but was baptised Edward by accident. He attended ] in ]. At ] in ], he became involved with a group known as the Apostles (formally named the Cambridge Conversazione Society). Many of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the ]. Forster also associated with ] and ]. He travelled in Egypt, Germany and India with classicist ] in 1914. He died in ]. Forster's two most noted works, ] and ], explore the irreconcilability of class differences.
'''Edward Morgan Forster''' (], ] - ], ]) was an English ].
⚫ Five of his six novels have been made into films, three of them by ] and ].

⚫ He was born in ], the son of an architect. He was to have been named Henry, but was baptised Edward by accident. He attended ] in ]. At ] in ], he became involved with a group known as the Apostles (formally named the Cambridge Conversazione Society). Many of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the ]. Forster also belonged to an informal group of gay intellectuals which included ] and ]. He travelled in Egypt, Germany and India with classicist ] in 1914. He died in ].
⚫ Five of his six novels have been made into films, three of them done by ] and ].
E. M. Forster should not be confused with ], the author of the ] novels. E. M. Forster should not be confused with ], the author of the ] novels.

== Key themes ==

=== Secular humanism ===

Forster's views as a ] are at the heart of his work, which often features characters attempting to understand each other ('only connect...', in the words of Forster's famous epigraph to '']'' across social barriers. In ''Howards End'', for example, the central relationship, unacceptable to some of Forster's contemporary readers, is between working-class Leonard Bast and upper-middle-class Helen Schlegel.

In ''],'' the main barrier is one of race, a triangle of mistrust between the British and their Muslim and Hindu subjects. A young Indian, Dr. Aziz, is accused of raping a white British girl, Adela Quested, on a tour of a local cave; the accusation appears to be false, although what actually happened in the cave is never revealed to the reader. The incident convinces him of the impossibility of friendship between Indians and the British, and damages his friendship with Fielding, a liberal-minded Englishman. Forster's goal seems to be to show that all humans are of one race, that the barriers between them are artificial, but also, pessimistically, that even if we can 'connect' emotionally, our relationships are often doomed to fail because of social pressure. Forster gives an outline of his worldview in his non-fictional essay '']''.

=== Sexuality ===
Forster's writing can perhaps be most succinctly characterized as progressing from ] love to ] love. Supposedly this was all started when in his early 30s he paid a visit to ] and his lover ]. A particularly sensual touch by Merrill on his backside, as he later recalled, drove him to start working on ''Maurice'', which he tinkered with later on. The two protagonists of that novel, Maurice and Scudder, seem to some degree be modelled after Carpenter and Merrill, reflecting in particular their class difference, which Forster (just as so many other gay poets and authors of the time) perceived as liberating and an escape from the confinements of middle-class morals. The novel was passed to many of Forster's friends to be read, but was not published until after his death.

While gay subtexts are more hidden in ''A Passage to India'', the title of this work gives away its origin in the ] poem ''Passage to India'', which is about male comradeship. Carpenter was again the medium by which this influence reached Forster.

After ''A Passage to India'', Forster proclaimed he was unable to do any more stories in "their", i.e. 'the heterosexuals', way ("I shall never write another novel after it (''Passage''), my patience with ordinary people has given out.") and concentrated on writing short stories, often with gay themes. ''Maurice'', in circulation only between his closest friends at his lifetime, was finally published posthumously, even though ] had progressed considerably during the late ] and early ], making the extreme caution seem somewhat strange. While '']'' may be in some ways relatively dated (for example Scudder's panic reaction after their first night spent together to try to extort money from Maurice), and was also considered obsolete by the author in his ''Terminal Note'' to ''Maurice'', it still is appealing today for its emotional frankness, warm humor, and romantic (if somewhat unrealistic) ending.


== Novels == == Novels ==

Revision as of 19:39, 17 August 2005

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E. M. Forster

Edward Morgan Forster (January 1, 1879 - June 7, 1970) was an English novelist, born in London, the son of an architect. He was to have been named Henry, but was baptised Edward by accident. He attended Tonbridge School in Kent. At King's College, Cambridge in 1901, he became involved with a group known as the Apostles (formally named the Cambridge Conversazione Society). Many of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the Bloomsbury group. Forster also associated with Siegfried Sassoon and J. R. Ackerley. He travelled in Egypt, Germany and India with classicist G.L. Dickinson in 1914. He died in Coventry. Forster's two most noted works, A Passage to India and Howard's End, explore the irreconcilability of class differences. Five of his six novels have been made into films, three of them by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. E. M. Forster should not be confused with C. S. Forester, the author of the Horatio Hornblower novels.

Novels

Short Stories

  • The Celestial Omnibus (and other stories) 1911
  • The Eternal Moment (and other stories) 1928
  • Collected Short Stories (1947) - a combination of the above two titles, containing:
    • The Story of A Panic
    • The Other Side Of The Hedge
    • The Celestial Omnibus
    • Other Kingdom
    • The Curate's Friend
    • The Road From Colonus
    • The Machine Stops
    • The Point Of It
    • Mr Andrews
    • Co-ordination
    • The Story Of The Siren
    • The Eternal Moment
  • The Life to Come (and other stories) 1972 (posthumous)
    • Ansell
    • Albergo Empedocle
    • The Purple Envelope
    • The Helping Hand
    • The Rock
    • The Life to Come
    • Dr Woolacott
    • Arthur Snatchfold
    • The Obelisk
    • What Does It Matter? A Morality
    • The Classical Annex
    • The Torque
    • The Other Boat
    • Three Courses and a Dessert: Being a New and Gastronomic Version of the Old Game of Consequences

Plays

  • England's Pleasant Land 1940

Libretto

Essays

  • Alexandria: A History and Guide 1922
  • Pharos and Pharillon (A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) 1923
  • Aspects of the Novel 1927
  • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson 1934
  • Abinger Harvest 1940
  • The Hill of Devi 1953
  • Marianne Thornton, A Domestic Biography 1956

Non-fiction Books

  • Two Cheers for Democracy
  • What I believe and other Essays
  • Commonplace Book 1987 (posthumous)

Books about E.M. Forster

  • Brander, Lauwrence, E.M. Forster. A critical study (London, 1968)
  • Cavaliero, Glen, A Reading of E.M. Forster (London, 1979).
  • Colmer, John, E.M. Forster - The personal voice (London, 1975).
  • E.M. Forster, ed. by Norman Page, Macmillan Modern Novelists (Houndmills, 1987).
  • E.M. Forster: The critical heritage, ed. by Philip Gardner (London, 1973).
  • Forster: A collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Malcolm Bradbury (New Jersey, 1966).
  • Martin, John Sayre, E.M. Forster. The endless journey (London, 1976).
  • Scott, P.J.M., E.M. Forster: Our Permanent Contemporary, Critical Studies Series (London, 1984).
  • Wilde, Alan, Art and Order. A Study of E.M. Forster (New York, 1967).

External links

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