Handout Forster's Background 10.11.10

Universität KonstanzFachbereich LiteraturwissenschaftWintersemester 2010/11Proseminar: Introduction to the Analysis of Literary Texts: Edward Morgan Forster Dozentin: Dr. phil. Claudia Rapp Referentin: Viktoria Moosmann

10.11.2010

E.M. Forster: his background

1. Forster's childhood

• * 1st January 1879, died 7th June 1970

• only child, parents: Lily and Edward Morgan Forster (architect), who died in 1880

• was raised by his mother and his aunts, he grew up over-protected

• his great-aunt (father's side), Marianne Thornton, was a descendant of the ClaphamSect of evangelists and reformers; Forster was brought up religious, later herejected his Christian faith

• Clapham Sect: members shared common political views (liberation of slaves,abolition of slave trade and reform of penal system)

• 1888: death of Marianne Thornton: Forster inherits 8000 pounds (gave Forster thefreedom to travel and to write

2. Education

• 1890: he attended preparatory boarding school; made him unhappy, so his mothermoved to Tonbridge, so he could attend as a dayboy

• Tonbridge changed him from a beautiful, eloquent child into an awkward, repressedadolescent

• 1897: Forster enters King's College, Cambridge

• for the first time in his life he experienced freedom and real friendship

3. Cambridge Apostles / 'Conversazione Society' (founded in 1820)

• secret society, debated questions of religion, morality, ethical conduct and arthad their self-declared freedom from intellectual restrains, but also taboos indiscussion, e.g. sexuality

• membership by election, women excluded

• own rituals: undergrade members (Active Brethren), senior members (Angels)

• met Saturday evenings when a formal paper was read (e.g. G.E. Moore, whoplayed an important part in Forster's intellectual awakening in Cambridge)

• Forster was elected member in 1901

• live in Cambridge was really different to his childhood, especially because of theexclusively male environment while he was brought up in a circle of adoring women

• opened to him new vistas of human relationship; for him it was the honesty and therelationship that mattered most

• on the other hand, Cambridge, King's and the Apostles might have entrapped him:all his novels were given to further explorations of human relationship

4. Bloomsbury Group

• owed its name of the district of London where intellectuals were disposed to live

• was formed by some members of the Apostles, now with the addition of two women(Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell), what made a great difference

• set of intellectuals and artists; central nucleus: Virgina Woolf, Leonard Woolf,Maynard Keynes (economist), Lytton Strachey (biographer), Vanessa Bell, DuncanGrant (painter), Clive Bell and Roger Fry (art critics)

• Gordon Square (Leonard Woolf's house) became the central meeting place

• Bloomsbury stood for independence of mind and culture, for liberation of the criticalfaculties

• collective will to sustain itself in a world of massive antagonistic forces

• creative achievement: Hogarth Press, a publishing firm: great progressive force incontemporary literature after the first World War

• but Bloomsbury also aroused hostility (opponents: Wyndham Lewis, L.H. Myers,F.R. Leavis, D.H. Lawrence)

• they were worshipped by some (for being disciples of beauty, love and friendship),derided by others (for making a religion of artiness and their own convolutedrelationships)

• Bloomsbury presented themselves as at war with Victorianism and stultifyingconventionality

• the real importance of it was the encouragement and stimulus it gave to the work ofits individual members

• Forster valued Bloomsbury, because it continued and extended some of theCambridge values that meant most to him; Forster's fruitfulness derived from hisrelationship within the circle; he had a close friendship with Leonard Woolf andRoger Fry, but he was not a central figure

• Forster's relationship to the Group is described as a peripheral and ambivalent one,what is reflected in his work, too

• 'his writings have been read as an uncomplicated elaboration of what the Group asa whole espoused' (Medalie 2007: 36)

5. Summary

• The Apostles and Bloomsbury highly influenced Forster's live and writing

• especially the values demonstrated in his fiction and criticism derive from theirinfluence

• In Cambridge he experienced real friendship and honesty

• Bloomsbury continued and extended some of the Cambridge values, especiallyfriendship was central to their creed

Literature

• Medalie, David. “Bloomsbury and other values”. In David Bradshaw (ed.) TheCambridge Companion To E. M. Forster. Cambrigde: Cambridge University Press,2007: 32-46.

• Saunders, Max. “Forster's life and life-writing”. David Bradshaw (ed.) TheCambridge Companion To E. M. Forster. Cambrigde: Cambridge University Press,2007: 8-31.

• Gillie, Christopher. A Preface To Forster. New York: Longman Group Limited, 1983.

• Page, Norman. E. M. Forster. Houndmills/London: The Macmillan, 1987.