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(A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E....)
A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s.
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Edward Morgan Forster was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is particularly known for his novels Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924) and a large body of criticism.
Background
Ethnicity:
Forster was born into an Anglo-Irish and Welsh family.
Edward Morgan Forster was born in London, United Kingdom on January 1, 1879; the son of Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster and Alice Clara Forster. His father died of tuberculosis on 30 October 1880, before Morgan's second birthday. His great-aunt left him a legacy of eight thousand pounds when she died in 1887, making it possible for him to receive without strain a university education and to devote himself to a career as a writer without worrying about other employment.
Education
One of the most important periods of Forster's early life was his residence with his mother at Rooksnest, a house in Hertfordshire near Stevenage, which became the model for Howards End house and farm in Howards End (1910). Here Forster developed his love for the English countryside, and Rooksnest.
Morgan was educated at Tonbridge School in Kent, thus the family had to leave Rooksnest to reside in Tonbridge. These years at school were unhappy for Forster, and he later reflected on this disaffection in his depiction of Sawston School in The Longest Journey (1907).
Then he studied at King's College, Cambridge, between 1897 and 1901. There he became a member of a discussion society known as the Apostles. After leaving university, he travelled in continental Europe with his mother.
In 1902, Forster became an instructor at the Working Men's College in London, an affiliation that lasted for twenty years. At the suggestion of Nathaniel Wedd, Forster's tutor and friend at Cambridge, he also decided to become a writer. The years from 1903 to 1910 were years of extraordinary creative release for Forster. He wrote four novels of surpassing force and insight, all of them now recognized as Edwardian classics: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howards End (1910).
In 1912 Forster visited India for the first time. At that time he was writing ‘Maurice’. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, World War I broke out in 1914. Forster did not serve in a military capacity because he objected to the war, however, he did work at a hospital for the Red Cross in Egypt from 1916 until 1917. His observations there inspired ‘Alexandria: A History and Guide’ (1922) and ‘Pharos and Pharillon: A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria through the Ages’ (1923). During this time, he wrote many short stories for local newspapers under the pseudonym ‘Pharos’.
On his second visit to India in the early 1920s, the country was in a state of revolution. He became the private secretary to “Tukojirao III”, the Maharajah of Dewas. A non-fictional account of this period is chronicled in ‘The Hill of Devi’ (published in 1953).
When Forster published A Passage to India in 1924, he was in his mid-forties and was already a respected and relatively successful novelist. This novel, however, catapulted him to literary fame and popular acclaim. Thereafter he turned away from fiction, concentrating his creative energies on essay writing and political engagement. Notable collections of his essays and literary criticism are Abinger Harvest (1936) and Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).
In the 1930s and 1940s, Forster gained public prominence in part because his essays kept bringing him before the public. He became a broadcaster for the BBC radio and presented a weekly book review during the war. In his public utterances he revealed a deep commitment to values that first the Depression and then the Nazi rise to power and World War II placed under threat; and, in the years after 1945, he enjoyed international prestige.
His honorary fellowship at Cambridge allowed him to live and spend time at the college. He occasionally gave lectures and became a respected member on campus.
Forster suffered his first stroke in 1964, though, and a more serious one the next year; his health deteriorated gradually thereafter. He had to give up what had been an active life of traveling and speaking engagements, though he remained intellectually acute until his death. He suffered a massive stroke on May 22, 1970, and died on June 7, 1970.
In 1971, Maurice, a novel Forster had written in 1913–14, was published posthumously. His unpublished short stories and essays were also published posthumously in Albergo Empedocle and Other Writings (1972).
Forster's short stories are collected in The Celestial Omnibus (1911) and The Eternal Moment (1928). In addition to essays, short stories, and novels, Forster wrote a biography of his great-aunt, Marianne Thornton (1956).
One of the most gifted writers of his time, Edward Morgan Forster penned some of the best novels of the 20th century that were well-plotted and ironic and included themes of class and hypocrisy in English society. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 different years.
Many of the film adaptations of Forster's work were met with widespread enthusiasm and praise, including multiple Academy Award nominations. Titles by Forster that are immortalized not only on the page but also on film include A Passage to India (1984), A Room with a View (1986), Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), and Howards End (1991).
While working at the BBC, E. M. Forster was awarded the “Benson Medal” in 1937 for his weekly book reviews. He was also voted as an honorary ‘Fellow’ of King’s College in 1946. 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.
The theater at Tonbridge School, his alma mater, is named in his honor.
At Cambridge, Forster acknowledged his agnosticism and his antipathy for Christianity.
Views
Generally, Forster's fiction works focus on three major themes: salvation through love, the deficiency of traditional Christianity, and the repressive nature of English culture. Forster explores the emotional and sensual deficiencies of the English middle class, and examines its relationship to other social classes, developing his themes by means of irony, wit, and symbolism. He also often treats the contrasts between human freedom and repression.
As an essayist Forster wrote commentaries on outstanding individuals of the past and present, on social problems, on political questions, on aesthetics and the arts, on the spell of the past, on the fascination of distant places (including the Orient), on the threat of war, and on the actual cataclysm of the war itself. Forster's point of view was that of the engaged humanist; his stance varied from an objective analysis of a situation, personality, or book to familiar utterances in which his own temperament and preferences predominated.
Quotations:
“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”
“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”
“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.”
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
“I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.”
“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”
“I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.”
“Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.”
“Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?”
“If we act the truth the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run.”
Membership
During his years at King’s College, he was an active participant of groups such as Cambridge Conversazione Society, also known as the Cambridge Apostles. He became a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group.
Personality
Forster’s only ever interest in life was writing and he used his time and experiences to contribute to this interest immensely. Forster was widely traveled and narrated these events in his stories.
Not many at the time knew of Forster’s homosexuality. He confided it to his close friends but not to the public. The author’s homosexuality and romances were the subjects of his novel, ‘Maurice’ that was published after he was gone.
Forster was a constant opponent of adapting books into films; he was of the view that a film or stage performance does not do justice to a literary work. Despite this view, many of his works were adapted into highly successful films and have kept his legacy alive.
Quotes from others about the person
Christopher Isherwood: "His light blue eyes behind his spectacles were like those of a baby who remembers his previous incarnation and is more amused than dismayed to find himself reborn in new surroundings. He had a baby's vulnerability, which is also the invulnerability of a creature whom one dare not harm."
Cyril Connolly: "Only connect...", the motto of Howards End, might be the lesson of all his work. His heroes and heroines...are the precursors of the left-wing young people of today; he can be used by them as a take-off in whatever direction they would develop... Much of his art consists in the plain-ness of his writing, for he is certain of the truth of his convictions and the force of his emotions."
Colm Tóibín: "Forster wrote the five books on which his reputation rests because he desperately needed to create characters and situations that would expose his own plight in ways that were subtle and dramatic without being obvious or explicit. His true nature was not only homosexual, it was also wounded, mysterious and filled with sympathy for others, including foreigners and women. Despite his best intentions, he allowed all of himself into the five novels published in his lifetime, and only part of himself into “Maurice"."
Interests
travelling
Connections
E. M. Forster was a lifelong bachelor. He was involved with many men throughout his life. In Alexandria, he fell in love with Mohammed el Adl, a tram conductor. He had a brief fling with Harry Daley, a member of the Bloomsbury group. A bus driver named, Arthur, was the subject of his affections till his wife found out and put an end to the relationship.
When Forster was 51, he met 28-year-old Bob Buckingham at a party thrown by JR Ackerley. Buckingham was a policeman who was married at the time. They shared a long loving relationship that extended to a secret domestic life at Forster’s Brunswick Square flat. He was the godfather of Robin Morgan, the son of Bob Buckingham and his wife, May Hockey.
Father:
Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster
Mother:
Alice Clara "Lily" (née Whichelo)
Friend:
Richard Marquand
Richard Marquand (22 September 1937 – 4 September 1987) was a Welsh film director, best known for directing 1983's Return of the Jedi. He also directed the critically acclaimed 1981 drama film Eye of the Needle and the 1985 thriller Jagged Edge.
References
A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster
A Great Unrecorded History is a biography of the heart. Moffat's decade of detective work—including first-time interviews with Forster's friends—has resulted in the first book to integrate Forster's public and private lives. Seeing his life through the lens of his sexuality offers us a radically new view—revealing his astuteness as a social critic, his political bravery, and his prophetic vision of gay intimacy. A Great Unrecorded History invites us to see Forster— and modern gay history—from a completely new angle.
Concerning E. M. Forster
This impressive new book by the celebrated British critic Frank Kermode examines hitherto neglected aspects of the novelist E. M. Forster's life and work.
