U_sogos_s_forster.pdf

Book of Abstracts of the E.M. Forster Conference to be held in Olsztyn 29-30th September 2016 - more details available here http://society.emforster.de/olsztyn-2016

Journal of Human and Social Sciences, 2021

Research Artichle As an Edwardian author and a 'reluctant modernist' E.M. Forster penned several short stories as well as great novels. In the three selected short stories titled "The Story of a Panic", "The Story of a Siren", and "The Celestial Omnibus", Forster makes use of fantasy fiction based on the feeling of desire. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how Forster's emotive fantasies are constructed through features of "longing for another world or a lost world" and/or "finding our own world enchanted". Some of the underlying motifs such as mythological figures, pastoral images, beauty and individualism are also part of the discussion. Using the theory of Todorov's fantasy and Manlove's arguments regarding fantasy fiction as a springboard for discussion, this study argues that even though the selected short stories by Forster are shaped by desire as emotive fantasies, the feeling of desire does not lead to a satisfaction; in other words, desire is an inconlusive and discontinuous feeling which contributes to the formation of the stories.

2011

Although E.M. Forster’s concern with the imaginative and emotional aspects of place is well-known, the specifics of what he meant by place and the way it changed throughout his seventy-year writing career are not. This study proposes a ‘deep locational criticism’ derived by combining the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre with empirical topographic and historical approaches to the particular English zones with which Forster was most familiar. These zones are conceptualized with a multiple London at the centre, then the Home Counties and a notion of Wild England as concentric circles beyond. The introductory chapter is a survey of approaches to space and place produced in different disciplines, including philosophy, narratology, literary criticism, human geography and sociolinguistics, which proposes a tripartite model of literary place: physical encounters (incorporating a personal dimension in an academic study of literary place), loco-reference and intra-textual landscapes. Each subsequent chapter focuses on a particular English place and traces its presence and alterations throughout Forster’s writings. Six places of radically varying sizes are covered in this way: Sawston (an imaginative construct based on Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells in Kent); ‘Wild England’; Surrey; London; King’s College, Cambridge; Rooksnest, Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Among Forster’s works his fiction, notably the novels The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, Howards End and Maurice and certain short stories, is present, but equal weight is given to his non-fiction, for example his diaries and journals, various essays, his Marianne Thornton: A Domestic Biography, and “West Hackhurst: A Surrey Ramble”, his little-known but highly revealing account of his life in Surrey and family connections there. Forster’s views of English place were always in flux and examination of their details calls into question many aspects of the familiar and accepted account of him. It also suggests new directions for future studies of the so-called age of Modernism and indeed for literary studies more generally. Starting from the details and narratives of specific places writers inhabit and describe, a spatial or topographic sub-field of literary study could grow towards the level of sophistication and maturity long ago attained by literary historical study.

2010

"The volume intended to commemorate the 40th anniversary of E. M. Forster's death. It consists of ten papers by various authors which deal with various aspects of Forster's oeuvre, creating a new overview of his works from his novels, through his essays to his only opera libretto. List of Contents Anna Kwiatkowska - Ironic Reflections on Life: E. M. Forster’s Novels and Henri Bergson’s Philosophy of Laughter Paweł Wojtas - E. M. Forster’s Uneasy Bildungsroman: Exploring the Meanders of Existential Aporias in The Longest Journey Krzysztof Kramarz - Deletion, Metaphor and Footnote: the Analysis of Polish Translations of A Room with a View Tomasz Dobrogoszcz - A Passage to OU-BOUM – Homi Bhabha reads E. M. Forster Krzysztof Fordoński - E. M. Forster’s Geography of Homosexual Desire Piotr Urbański - “The love that passes understanding has come to me” – Remarks on Staging Billy Budd Heiko Zimmermann - Teaching E. M. Forster in 2010 – Essayistic Reflections Krzysztof Fordoński - Polish Aspects of E. M. Forster – A Postscript From the cover - an excerpt from review "This collection of essays edited by Krzysztof Fordoński, a renowned specialist in E.M. Forster’s novels, is devoted to various aspects of Forster’s literary output and undoubtedly will be a landmark publication. The book successfully presents all the major issues important in Forster’s works for the contemporary reader: cultural differences, existential and aesthetic problems, varieties of sexual desire, educational challenges. These aspects are discussed from the viewpoint of postcolonial, gender, translation, educational, and cultural studies. This volume should be easily accessible to a wider, international audience, readers who enjoy Forster’s novels and are interested in learning about a variety of issues associated with his life and works." Prof. Piotr Wilczek, Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies „Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw"

Okara: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, 2013

Aspects of the Novel is the publication of a series of lectures on the English Language novel delivered by E.M. Forster. These lectures presents the seven aspects, Forster believes, should include in the novel. Those seven aspects are story, people, plot, fantasy and prophecy, pattern and rhythm. This article is elaborating those seven aspects along with the explanation. It is expected that after reading Forster’s lectures, people will get a better insight towards the form of a good novel.

Language and Literary Studies of Warsaw, 2020

The article aims at charting the position of Edward Morgan Forster and his works in contemporary English language culture. It presents various forms of adaptations of or responses to the works of Forster, concentrating on those which have been created since the writer's death in 1970. The discussed material consists of approximately one hundred instances of various works of art related in a number of ways to Forster's oeuvre and biography: adaptations, works inspired by Forster's oeuvre or biography, and, finally, works which enter into a dialogue with Forster and his views. Radio plays, operas, plays, movies, musicals, comic books, concept albums, etc. have been included as well. The paper also touches upon Forster's reception among scholars and in political journalism. The paper is supplemented with lists of various adaptations. The two files are draft with links to sources and the official published text.

Often criticised for its escapist ending, Maurice is surprisingly radical if viewed in the tradition of nineteenth-century political writings. The Chartist writers of the 1840s did not have a solution for the Condition of England question so their radical short stories portrayed characters that were denied equal rights by the state as either dying or leaving England for good. Far from being a radical writer, Forster nevertheless faced a similar dilemma: how to create a positive literary homosexual identity and what to do with a cross-class same-sex couple for which ostracism seemed inevitable. Forster wrote Maurice after his first journey to India, yet instead of giving Maurice and Alec a happily-ever-after in the colonies or Argentina, he allowed them to settle in the English greenwood – fairytale-esque and pastoral yet seditiously subversive by virtue of its very existence. By doing so, he kept the socially seditious element firmly on the edges of English society as he denied it the easiest solution to this specific aspect of the Condition of England question. Maurice is a product of English society, yet despite being Cambridge-educated and upper-middle-class, Maurice finds his happy ending with Scudder, not Clive. Lytton Strachey was one of many readers who, despite knowing that Forster’s novel was inspired by Edward Carpenter’s cross-class relationship with George Merrill, considered the ending unrealistic and implausible, the class chasm between Maurice and Alec being considered too wide for a happy relationship. Yet it was Forster’s decision to give his protagonist a happy ending against all odds that makes Maurice different from most other contemporary gay fiction. Therefore, this paper concerns itself with the hypothesis that Forster’s choice of ending the novel is more radical and subversive than has frequently been argued in the past.

Book of abstracts for the conference E.M. Forster: Nature, Culture, Queer! held in Ludwigsburg in April 2018.