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 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. Forster's
central 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.
"If human nature does alter it will be because individuals
manage to look at themselves in a new way. Here and there people
- a very few people, but a few novelists are among them - are
trying to do this. Every institution and vested interest in against
such a search: organized religion, the State, the family in its
economic aspect, have nothing to gain, and it is only when outward
prohibitions weaken that it can proceed: history conditions it
to that extent."
(from Aspects of the Novel, 1927)
E.M. Forster was born in London as the son of an architect, who
died before his only child was two years old. His mother and his
aunts dominated Forster's childhood and much of his adult life.
The legacy of her paternal great-aunt Marianne Thornton, descendant
of the Clapham Sect of evangelists and reformers, gave later Forster
the freedom to travel and to write.
Forster attended King's College, Cambridge (1897-1901), where he
met members of the later formed Bloomsbury group. In the atmosphere
of scepticism, he became under the influence of Sir James Frazer,
Nathaniel Wedd, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, and G.E. Moore, and
shed his not very deep Christian faith. After graduating he travelled
in Italy and Greece with his mother, and on his return began to
write essays and short stories for the liberal Independent Review.
In 1905 Foster spent several month in German as tutor to the children
of the Countess von Armin.
 In
the same year appeared his first novel, WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD.
In the following year he lectured on Italian art and history for
the Cambridge Local Lectures Board. In 1907 appeared THE LONGEST
JOURNEY, then A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1908), based partly on the material
from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. The protagonist,
young Lucy Honeychurch, becomes caught between two men, shallow,
conventional Cecil Vyse and George Emerson, whose original opinions
on art and love frighten her family. Finally Lucy overcomes prejudices
and marries George.
HOWARD'S END (1910) was a story that centred on an English country
house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested
in art and literature, the other only in business. The book brought
together the themes of money, business and culture. The novel established
Forster's reputation, and he embarked upon a new novel with a homosexual
theme, MAURICE. The picture of British attitudes not long after
Wilde was revised several times during his life, and finally published
posthumously in 1971. His personal life Forster hid from public
discussion. In 1930 he had a relationship with a London policeman.
This important contact continued after the marriage of his London
friend.
Between the years 1912 and 1913 Forster travelled in India. From
1914 to 1915 he worked for the National Gallery in London. Following
the outbreak of World War I, Forster joined the Red Cross and served
in Alexandria, Egypt. There he met the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy, and
published a selection of his poems in PHARAOS AND PHARILLON (1923).
In 1921 Forster returned to India, working as a private secretary
to the Maharajah of Dewas. The land was the scene of his masterwork
A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1924), an account of India under British rule.
It was Forster's last novel - and for the remaining 46 years of
his life he devoted himself to other activities. He contributed
reviews and essays to numerous journals, most notably the Listener,
he was an active member of PEN, in 1934 he became the first president
of the National Council for Civil Liberties, and after his mother's
death in 1945, he was elected an honorary fellow of King's and lived
there for the remainder of his life.
 In
1949 Forster refused a knighthood and in 1951 he collaborated with
Eric Crozier on the libretto of Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd,
which was based on Herman Melville's novel (film 1962, dir. by
Peter Ustinov). He was made a Companion of Honour in 1953 and
in 1969 he accepted an Order of Merit. Forster died on June 7, 1970.
Forster criticized in his books Victorian middle class attitudes
and British colonialism through strong woman characters. The epithet
'Fostering' - liberal, unconventional, sceptical, and moral - had
started to circulate since the publication of Howard's End.
Forster's famous essay 'Two Cheers for Democracy' (also: 'What I
Believe'), which was originally printed in 1938 in the New York
Nation reflected his concern for individual liberty. He assumed
liberal humanism not dogmatically but ironically, writing in unceremonious
sentences and making gentle stabs at pomposity and hypocrisy. The
British Humanist Association has reissued this classical work and
similar essays.
"So Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety
and two because it permits criticism."
For further reading: E.M. Forster by Lionel Trilling (1943);
The Novels of .M. Forster by J. McConley (1957); Down There on
a Visit by Christopher Isherwood (1962); The Achievement of E.M.
Foerster by J. Beer (1962); The Cave and the Mountain by Wilfred
Stone (1966); E.M. Forster: a Life by B.N. Furbank (1977-78, 2
vols.); An E.M. Forster Dictionary by Alfredo Borello (1971);
An E.M. Forster Glossary by Alfredo Borello (1972); The Bloomsbury
Group by S.P. Rosenbaum (1975); A Bibliography of E.M. Forster
by Brownlee Jean Kirkpatrick (1986); E.M. Forster, ed. by Harold
Bloom (1987); A Passage to India by Judith Scherer Herz (1993);
A Passage to India, ed. by Tony Davies and Nigel Wood (1994);
The Prose and the Passion by Nigel Rapport (1994); Morgan: A Biography
of E.M. Forster by Nicola Beauman (1994); E.M. Forster: Contemporary
Critical Essays, ed. by Jeremy Tambling (1995); The Modernist
as Pragmatist by Brian May (1997); Queer Forster, ed. by Robert
K. Martin and George Piggford (1997); Howards End, ed. by Paul
B. Armstrong (1998)
Passage to India (1924) - Adela Quested visits Chandrapore
with Mrs Moore in order to make up her mind whether to marry the
latter's son. Mrs Moore meets his friend Dr Azis, assistant to
the British Civil Surgeon. She and Adela accept Azis's invitation
to visit the mysterious Marabar Caves. In this trip Mrs Moore
undergoes a traumatic experience and Adela believes herself to
have been the victim of a sexual assault by Azis, who is arrested.
Mrs Moore dies on the voyage home and Adela admits that she was
mistaken. Azis has changed his liberal views and insists that
he can have a friend among the British only when India has gained
independence. - The novel's title derives from Walt Whitman, but
the American poet's celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal
as bringing together East and West is qualified by Kipling's assertion
that 'ne'er the twain shall meet.'
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