E. M. Forster (1879 - 1940)

Names Index:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
| Authors Index | Scholars Index |

Queer Forster  by Robert K. Martin (Editor), George Piggford (Editor)

It is no longer a secret that famed British novelist E. M. Forster was a homosexual (the posthumous publication of his gay-themed novel Maurice in 1971 made that perfectly clear), but academic criticism has been late in catching up with this news. Even when critics acknowledge Forster's sexuality they rarely discuss its relationship to his fiction. Robert K. Martin and George Piggford's Queer Forster collects 13 essays that analyze the writer's work--including The Longest Journey and his essays on censorship, India, and British politics--in the context of his sexuality and the social and political issues of his time. Forster's relationship to the Bloomsbury Group, many of whom were openly gay as opposed to Forster's more quite life, is discussed at length. More traditionally minded academics complain that this biographical criticism "limits" an understanding of a writer's work, but Queer Forster contains some of the most provocative and insightful contemporary writing on modern British literature.

From the Author

This book is intended for both literary critics and general readers. In it, my co-editor and I try to bring the emerging field of "queer theory" (roughly, the deconstruction of sexual identity) into conversation with the writing of the early twentieth-century novelist E. M. Forster, author of Room With a View, Howards End, Maurice, and A Passage to India. What we and our contributors discover is a Forster queerer than ever before imagined, an author whose texts explore the complications of class, race, nation, gender, and sexuality in ways that are sophisticated and lucid, charming and revolutionary.  Forster famously wrote in his essay "What I Believe" that "if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." When Forster first published these comments, in 1938, they were controversial because they placed human relations over nationalism, friendship over patriotism. Since Forster's posthumous "outing"--an "outing" that he himself arranged before his death--these sentiments have come to signify in a different register. With our more complete knowledge of Forster's homosexual relationships and friendships, we now understand that "friend" here means both "buddy" and "lover," a usage of this term found in writers from Plato to Walt Whitman. Forster here suggests that the homosexual is sometimes forced to choose between his "illegal" sexual relationships and the country that condemns them. For Forster, the homosexual is always an outlaw, often an outlaw in hiding, who exists in important ways on the margins of society. This notion of the homosexual is, we argue, pervasive in Forster's writing, not just the explicitly gay novel and stories. Queer Forster? This book invites an exploration of that question with an open mind and with a renewed sense of the multiplicity and diversity of desire. -- George Piggford

Other Commentaries on E. M. Forster:

Edward Morgan Forester

By Petri Liukkonen

Excerpt:

English author and critic, member of Bloomsbury group and friend of Virginia Woolf. After gaining fame as a novelist, Forster spent his 46 remaining years publishing mainly short stories and non-fiction. Of his five important novels four appeared before World War I. Forster's major concern was that individuals should 'connect the prose with the passion' within themselves, and that one of the most exacting aspect of the novel is prophecy...

Only Connect...The Unofficial E. M. Forster Website

By Jennifer Whang

Excerpt:

E. M. Forster was born on 1 January 1879 in London, to parents Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster and Alice Clara ("Lily") Whichelo. Actually, he had been originally named Henry Morgan (after his late paternal uncle, Henry Thornton Forster), but was accidentally baptized as Edward Morgan, after his father. Imagine...he might have been named Henry! "Only connect" indeed...

"Connecting with E. M. Forster"

By Perkowitz, Sidney. The American Prospect, no. 26 (May-June 1996): 86-89.

Excerpt:

For those who have never read Howards End (or missed Emma Thompson in the 1992 film version), it is a book about human connection. Margaret Schlegel — the older of the two cultivated, well-to-do sisters central to the story — becomes impassioned over the phrase "Only connect!" which carries two meanings. One is a call to unite the opposing elements within each person — what Margaret calls the beast and the monk, the prose and the passion — while the other is a call to put the greatest energy into personal relations. "Only connect!" is the book's epigraph, and whenever Forster speaks as narrator he emphasizes the value of personal relationships...

Humanities Text Initiative, University of Michigan

Public Domain Modern English Text Collection includes:

Names Index:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
| Authors Index | Scholars Index |