E. M. Forster's Spiritual Journey in His Life and Works

Download or read book E. M. Forster's Spiritual Journey in His Life and Works written by Jeane Noordhoff Olson and published by Jeane Olson. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Author’s Preface: Birthdays are often the occasion for assessing earlier experiences and expressing hopes for the future. Opening the pages on a new century can stimulate a similar reckoning of accounts on a larger scale. January first of the year 1900 was both the beginning of a new century, as popular counting goes, and Edward Morgan Forster’s twenty-first birthday. As the Victorian era approached its conclusion, Forster was nearing the end of his studies at King’s College, Cambridge University. His great-aunt Marianne Thornton had left him the legacy that saw him through the university. But how would he support himself thereafter? The future was unclear until Nathaniel Wedd, a tutor who had become a good friend, encouraged him to seriously consider writing as a lifetime occupation. Forster eagerly grasped the idea. His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published to popular approval before he was thirty years old. Forster’s first four novels, Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, and Howards End, were all written within six years, between 1905 and 1910, with A Passage to India being published in 1924 and his homosexual novel, Maurice,seeing the light of day only after his death. All these novels were widely acclaimed when first published and are still in print. Forster had a mind full of projects on which he lavished his energy and prescient thoughts. His homosexuality was an ever-present black cloud affecting his actions and fears. The reader who wants a deeper treatment of that significant aspect of his life should read Wendy Moffat’s masterly—and graceful—volume, A Great Unrecorded History. Partly a biography of Forster, it is also a study of the era in which a conviction of homosexuality meant two years in prison doing hard labor. Homosexuality was also a challenge he had to confront every day. Another constant subject was freedom of speech and the threat of censorship, often in the name of national security. The reader may wonder at the multiplicity of footnotes. This is deliberate. Spirituality is a subject that can elicit many and diverse interpretations. The accumulated weight of Forster’s own words, assembled from his writings, buttresses my conclusion far more powerfully than could any paraphrases.