爱德华·摩根·福斯特ài dé huá . mó gēn . fú sī tè 1879 nián 1 yuè 1 rì shēng yú lún dūn。 fù qīn shì jiàn zhù shī， fú yīn pài xìn tú， qiáng diào yī gè rén yīngyǒu dào dé zé rèn gǎn。 mǔ qīn zé bǐ jiào suí hé、 kuān róng。 yòu nián shí fù qīn qù shì。 shàonián shí， rù kěn tè jùn tǎn bù lǐ qí xué xiào。 zhè shì yī zuò “ gōng xué ”， zài zhè lǐ de jīng lì shǐ tā yǐ duì yīng guó“ gōng xué” shí fēn fǎn gǎn， yīn wéi zhè zhòngxué xiào xùn liàn chū lái de xué shēng“ tǐ gé fā yù hǎo， tóu nǎo yě bǐ jiào fā dá， dàn xīn líng quán bù fā dá”。
1897 nián jìn rù jiàn qiáo dà xué guó wáng xué yuàn xué xí， yǔ xīn shí zài lùn zhé xué jiā mù 'ěr hé gǔ diǎn xué zhě dí jīn xùn jiāo wǎng， shēng huó zài yī zhǒng zì yóu zhù yì、 huái yí lùn、 chóng bài nán 'ōu hé gǔ dài wén míng de wén huà qì fēn zhōng。
kāi shǐ chuàng zuò hòu， tā chéng wéi yīng guó wén xué shǐ shàng zhù míng de bù lú mǔ cí bó lǐ pài de yī yuán， qiáng diào 'ài、 tóng qíng、 mǐn gǎn、 měi de chuàng zào hé xiǎng shòu、 zhuī qiú zhī shí de yǒng qì， shí jì shàng shì liú xíng zài shàng céng zhī shí fènzǐ zhōng jiān de rén wén zhù yì jīng shén。 tā fǎn duì jiào， dàn bù fǎn duì zōng jiào jīng shén。
dì yī cì shì jiè dà zhàn qī jiān， tā bèi pài wǎng 'āi jí yà lì shān dà chéng， zài bù duì zhōng rèn wén zhí。 1912 hé 1922 nián xiān hòu liǎng cì yóu lì yìn dù。 1946 nián jiàn qiáo dà xué guó wáng xué yuàn pìn tā wéi róng yù yán jiū yuán。 1970 nián zài kǎo wén chuí shì shì。
tā zhù yòu《 huò huá cí zhuāng yuán》 (HowardsEnd， 1910)、《 yìn dù zhī lǚ》 (APassagetoIndia， 1924)、《 kàn dé jiàn fēng jǐng de
fú sī tè de zhù yào chéng jiù shì wǔ bù xiǎo shuō hé yī bù yǎn shuō jí。 cǐ wài hái yòu yī bù zá wén jí（《 ā bīn zhé shōu huò jí》， 1936）、 liǎng bù duǎn piān xiǎo shuō jí hé liǎng bù zhuànjì。 tā de dì yī bù xiǎo shuō shì《 tiān shǐ bù gǎn shè zú de dì fāng》 (1905)， shū míng shì pú bǎi de yī jù shī de hòu bàn jù， qián bàn jù shì“ chǔn rén men què chuǎng jìn liǎo”。 xiǎo shuō xiě yīng guó zhōng chǎn jiē jí de zōng jiào dào dé guān niàn , gù shì qū zhé , rén wù xìng gé fù zá。《 zuì cháng de lǚ xíng》 (1907) de zhù tí shì xiàn xiàng yǔ shí zài（ shí jì de cún zài） de máo dùn。 shū míng yǐn zì xuě lāi《 líng hún shàng de líng hún》 yī shī， yì zhǐ bù zì yóu de jié hé shì“ zuì lìng rén yàn juàn、 zuì cháng de yī cì lǚ xíng”。 gù shì xiě de shì xiǎng xiàng zhōng de 'ài qíng yǔ xiàn shí shēng huó de máo dùn。 zuò zhě běn rén hé yī bān píng lùn dū rèn wéi zhè bù xiǎo shuō bìng bù chéng gōng。《 kàn dé jiàn fēng jǐng de
fú sī tè zuì zhù yào de xiǎo shuō shì《 huò huá cí zhuāng yuán》 (HowardsEnd， 1910) hé《 yìn dù zhī lǚ》 (APassagetoIndia， 1924)。《 huò huá cí zhuāng yuán》 xiě dài biǎo yīng guó zhōng chǎn jiē jí shàng céng de jīng shén hé wén huà de shī lāi gé 'ěr jiě mèi hé tóng yī jiē céng dài biǎo shí gān、 quē fá xiǎng xiàng hé 'ào màn de wēi 'ěr kē kè sī yī jiā zhī jiān， yǐ jí yīng guó zhōng chǎn jiē jí shàng céng hé xià céng zhī jiān de fù zá guān xì。《 yìn dù zhī lǚ》 shì zuò zhě zuì hòu yī bù yě shì zuì zhòng yào de yī bù xiǎo shuō。 zuò zhě zài zhè bù zuò pǐn lǐ bǎ“ lián jiē qǐ lái” de sī xiǎng kuò dà dào bù tóng de mín zú。
fú sī tè de xiǎo shuō shǔ yú yīng guó fēng sú xiǎo shuō de chuán tǒng。 tā de sī xiǎng nèi róng shì rén wén zhù yì zài 20 shì jì de fǎn yìng。 tā yǐ cǐ wéi wǔ qì， fěng cì、 pī píng yīng guó shè huì， bìng xiāng xìn shí xiàn liǎo“ ài de yuán zé”， shè huì máo dùn jiù kě yǐ hé jiě。 zuò zhě shàn yú miáo xiě rén yǔ rén zhī jiān de wēi miào guān xì， wǎng wǎng yōu mò 'ér wēi dài fěng cì。 wén zì yōu měi jīng liàn， cháng yòng yī xiē xiàng zhēng shǒu fǎ， nài rén xún wèi。
《 xiǎo shuō de jǐ gè fāng miàn》 (AspectsoftheNovel， 1927) shì 1927 nián zuò zhě yìng jiàn qiáo dà xué zhī qǐng suǒ zuò de yī xì liè“ kè lā kè jiǎng zuò” de yǎn jiǎng jí。 cǐ shū yǔ lè bó kè de《 xiǎo shuō jì yì》（ 1921） tóng wéi bǐ jiào xì tǒng de lùn shù xiǎo shuō yì shù de zhù zuò。
fú sī tè céng fā biǎo guò zhōng piān《 jī qì xiū zhǐ》 (TheMachineStops,1909)。 tā zì rèn zhè piān zuò pǐn shì tè dì wèile zhēn duì yī xiē lè guān ( zài fú sī tè zhe lái zé shǔ tiān zhēn ) de lùn diào 'ér xiě de。 gù shì xù shù wèi lái de shè huì yóu yú duì jī qì guòfèn yǐ lài hòu lái jī qì fā shēng gù zhàng， yī qiē tíng dùn xià lái， rén lèi yóu yú zài wú dú lì qiú shēng de néng lì， suì yī yī sǐ zài tíng dùn liǎo de jī qì de huái lǐ。 zhè piān jí jìn fěng cì de zuò pǐn， zài xiāng gé liǎo dà bàn gè shì jì de jīn tiān zhe lái， jǐng shì chù mù zhī chù réng rán bù jiǎn dāng nián。
Early years
Forster was born into an Anglo-Irish and Welsh middle-class family at 6 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square, London NW1, in a building which no longer exists. He was the only child of Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster and Alice Clara 'Lily' (nee Whichelo). His father, an architect, died of tuberculosis on 30 October 1880. Among Forster's ancestors were members of the Clapham Sect. He inherited £8,000 (£659,300 as of 2010),from his paternal great-aunt Marianne Thornton (daughter of the abolitionist Henry Thornton), who died on 5 November 1887. The money was enough to live on and enabled him to become a writer. He attended Tonbridge School in Kent as a day boy. The theatre at the school is named after him.
At King's College, Cambridge, between 1897 and 1901, he became a member of a discussion society 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, of which Forster was a peripheral member in the 1910s and 1920s. There is a famous recreation of Forster's Cambridge at the beginning of The Longest Journey.
After leaving university he travelled in continental Europe with his mother. He visited Egypt, Germany and India with the classicist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson in 1914. By that time, Forster had written all but one of his novels. When the First World War broke out, he became a conscientious objector.
Forster spent a second spell in India in the early 1920s as the private secretary to Tukojirao III, the Maharajah of Dewas. The Hill of Devi is his non-fictional account of this trip. After returning from India, he completed his last novel, A Passage to India (1924), for which he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
After A Passage to India
Arlington Park Mansions, Chiswick
In the 1930s and 1940s Forster became a successful broadcaster on BBC Radio and a public figure associated with the British Humanist Association. He was awarded a Benson Medal in 1937.
Forster developed a long-term loving relationship with Bob Buckingham, a married policeman (his wife's name was May), and included the couple in his circle, which also included the writer and arts editor of The Listener, J.R. Ackerley, the psychologist W.J.H. Sprott, and, for a time, the composer Benjamin Britten. Other writers with whom Forster associated included the poet Siegfried Sassoon and the Belfast-based novelist Forrest Reid.
From 1925 until her death at age 90 on 11 March 1945 the novelist lived with his mother in West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, finally leaving on or around 23 September 1946. His London base was 26 Brunswick Square from 1930 to 1939, after which he rented 9 Arlington Park Mansions in Chiswick until at least 1961.
Forster was elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge in January 1946, and lived for the most part in the college, doing relatively little. He declined a knighthood in 1949 and was made a Companion of Honour in 1953. In 1969 he was made a member of the Order of Merit. Forster died of a stroke in Coventry on 7 June 1970 at the age of 91, at the home of the Buckinghams. Forster was a humanist, homosexual, lifelong bachelor.
Novels
The monument to Forster in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, near Rooks Nest where Forster grew up and on which he based the setting for his novel Howards End. The area is now known as Forster Country.
Forster had five novels published in his lifetime. Although Maurice appeared shortly after his death, it had been written nearly sixty years earlier. A seventh novel, Arctic Summer, was never finished.
His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), is the story of Lilia, a young English widow who falls in love with an Italian man, and of the efforts of her bourgeois relatives to get her back from Monteriano (based on San Gimignano). The mission of Philip Herriton to retrieve her from Italy has features in common with that of Lambert Strether in Henry James's The Ambassadors, a work Forster discussed ironically and somewhat disapprovingly in his book Aspects of the Novel (1927). Where Angels Fear to Tread was adapted into a film by Charles Sturridge in 1991.
Next, Forster published The Longest Journey (1907), an inverted bildungsroman following the lame Rickie Elliott from Cambridge to a career as a struggling writer and then to a post as a schoolmaster, married to the unappetising Agnes Pembroke. In a series of scenes on the hills of Wiltshire which introduce Rickie's wild half-brother Stephen Wonham, Forster attempts a kind of sublime related to those of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence.
Forster's third novel, A Room with a View (1908), is his lightest and most optimistic. It was started before any of his others, as early as 1901, and exists in earlier forms referred to as "Lucy". The book is the story of young Lucy Honeychurch's trip to Italy with her cousin, and the choice she must make between the free-thinking George Emerson and the repressed aesthete Cecil Vyse. George's father Mr Emerson quotes thinkers who influenced Forster, including Samuel Butler. A Room with a View was filmed by Merchant-Ivory in 1985.
Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View can be seen collectively as Forster's Italian novels. Both include references to the famous Baedeker guidebooks and concern narrow-minded middle-class English tourists abroad. The books share many themes with short stories collected in The Celestial Omnibus and The Eternal Moment.
Howards End (1910) is an ambitious "condition-of-England" novel concerned with different groups within the Edwardian middle classes represented by the Schlegels (bohemian intellectuals), the Wilcoxes (thoughtless plutocrats) and the Basts (struggling lower-middle-class aspirants).
It is frequently observed that characters in Forster's novels die suddenly. This is true of Where Angels Fear to Tread, Howards End and, most particularly, The Longest Journey.
Forster achieved his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924). The novel takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj. Forster connects personal relationships with the politics of colonialism through the story of the Englishwoman Adela Quested, the Indian Dr. Aziz, and the question of what did or did not happen between them in the Marabar Caves.
Maurice (1971) was published posthumously. It is a homosexual love story which also returns to matters familiar from Forster's first three novels, such as the suburbs of London in the English home counties, the experience of attending Cambridge, and the wild landscape of Wiltshire. The novel was controversial, given that Forster's sexuality had not been previously known or widely acknowledged. Today's critics continue to argue over the extent to which Forster's sexuality, even his personal activities, influenced his writing.
Critical reception
In the United States, interest in and appreciation for Forster was spurred by (Trilling 1943) by Lionel Trilling, which began:
E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sensation of having learned something.
Key themes
Forster was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from 1963 until his death. His views as a humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. His humanist attitude is expressed in the non-fictional essay What I Believe.
Forster's two best-known works, A Passage to India and Howards End, explore the irreconcilability of class differences. A Room with a View also shows how questions of propriety and class can make connection difficult. The novel is his most widely read and accessible work, remaining popular long after its original publication. His posthumous novel Maurice explores the possibility of class reconciliation as one facet of a homosexual relationship.
Sexuality is another key theme in Forster's works, and it has been argued that a general shift from heterosexual love to homosexual love can be detected over the course of his writing career. The foreword to Maurice describes his struggle with his own homosexuality, while similar issues are explored in several volumes of homosexually charged short stories. Forster's explicitly homosexual writings, the novel Maurice and the short-story collection The Life to Come, were published shortly after his death.
Forster is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised (as by his friend Roger Fry) for his attachment to mysticism. One example of his symbolism is the wych elm tree in Howards End; the characters of Mrs Wilcox in that novel and Mrs Moore in A Passage to India have a mystical link with the past and a striking ability to connect with people from beyond their own circles.
Notable works by Forster
Novels
* Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
* The Longest Journey (1907)
* A Room with a View (1908)
* Howards End (1910)
* A Passage to India (1924)
* Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)
* Arctic Summer (an incomplete fragment, written in 1912–13, published posthumously in 2003)
* Book of Love
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:
o "The Story of a Panic"
o "The Other Side Of The Hedge"
o "The Celestial Omnibus"
o "Other Kingdom"
o "The Curate's Friend"
o "The Road from Colonus"
o "The Machine Stops"
o "The Point of It"
o "Mr Andrews"
o "Co-ordination"
o "The Story of the Siren"
o "The Eternal Moment"
* The Life to Come and other stories (1972) (posthumous) containing the following stories written between approximately 1903 and 1960:
o "Ansell"
o "Albergo Empedocle"
o "The Purple Envelope"
o "The Helping Hand"
o "The Rock"
o "The Life to Come"
o "Dr Woolacott"
o "Arthur Snatchfold"
o "The Obelisk"
o "What Does It Matter? A Morality"
o "The Classical Annex"
o "The Torque"
o "The Other Boat"
o "Three Courses and a Dessert: Being a New and Gastronomic Version of the Old Game of Consequences"
Plays and pageants
* Abinger Pageant (1934)
* England's Pleasant Land (1940)
Film scripts
* A Diary for Timothy (1945) (directed by Humphrey Jennings, spoken by Michael Redgrave)
Libretto
* Billy Budd (1951) (based on Melville's novel, for the opera by Britten)
Collections of essays and broadcasts
* Abinger Harvest (1936)
* Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
Literary criticism
* Aspects of the Novel (1927)
* The Feminine Note in Literature (posthumous) (2001)
Biography
* Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1934)
* Marianne Thornton, A Domestic Biography (1956)
Travel writing
* Alexandria: A History and Guide (1922)
* Pharos and Pharillon (A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) (1923)
* The Hill of Devi (1953)
Miscellaneous writings
* Selected Letters (1983–85)
* Commonplace Book (1985)
* Locked Diary (2007) (held at King's College, Cambridge)
Notable films based upon novels by Forster
* A Passage to India (1984), dir. David Lean
* A Room with a View (1985), dir. James Ivory
* Maurice (1987), dir. James Ivory
* Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), dir. Charles Sturridge
* Howards End (1992), dir. James Ivory
Secondary works on Forster
* Abrams, M.H. and Stephen Greenblatt, "E.M. Forster." The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2C, 7th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000: 2131–2140.
* Ackerley, J. R., E. M. Forster: A Portrait (Ian McKelvie, London, 1970)
* Bakshi, Parminder Kaur, Distant Desire. Homoerotic Codes and the Subversion of the English Novel in E. M. Forster's Fiction (New York, 1996).
* Beauman, Nicola, Morgan (London, 1993).
* 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).
* Crews, Frederick, E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (Textbook Publishers, 2003).
* 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).
* Furbank, P.N., E.M. Forster: A Life (London, 1977–78).
* Haag, Michael, Alexandria: City of Memory (London and New Haven, 2004). This portrait of Alexandria during the first half of the twentieth century includes a biographical account of E.M. Forster, his life in the city, his relationship with Constantine Cavafy, and his influence on Lawrence Durrell.
* Kermode, Frank, Concerning E. M. Forster, (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010)
* King, Francis, E.M. Forster and his World, (London, 1978).
* Martin, John Sayre, E.M. Forster. The endless journey (London, 1976).
* Herz, Judith and Martin, Robert K. E. M. Forster: Centenary Revaluations (Macmillan Press, 1982).
* Martin, Robert K. and Piggford, George (eds.) Queer Forster (Chicago, 1997)
* Mishra, Pankaj (ed.) "E.M. Forster." India in Mind: An Anthology. New York: Vintage Books, 2005: 61–70.
* Moffat, Wendy, E.M. Forster: A New Life, (Bloomsbury, 2010). Forster may have helped the gay cause more than you think.
* Scott, P.J.M., E.M. Forster: Our Permanent Contemporary, Critical Studies Series (London, 1984).
* Summers, Claude J., E.M. Forster (New York, 1983).
* Trilling, Lionel (1943), E. M. Forster: A Study, Norfolk: New Directions .
* Wilde, Alan, Art and Order. A Study of E.M. Forster (New York, 1967).