Talk:E. M. Forster

Films

I don't like the way in the list of Forster's novels, those that have been filmed have that fact in brackets after them. It seems to me to suggest that having one's work filmed is the ultimate ambition/pinnacle of career achievement of every author, which I don't think it is. This is especially the case when there is a separate category at the end for notable films made from Forster's works, and when each of these films have their own article.

I'd like to know what other people think before I dare to edit the article - if no one objects I guess I'll go ahead and do it anyway and see if anyone reverts. Shim jb 11:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Please don't revert the "Novels" Section under "Notable Works by Forster" to include film adapatations; there is already a "Notable films based upon novels by Forster" Section below. Doing so would be repetitious. HelloThere 10 Aug 2006

Notable drama

Why no mention of the first screen production of "A Passage to India", and with a now-famous Indian director (and Forster himself consulting and approving of it), in 1965? Yet a year later a less notable production of "The Machine Stops" gets listed. 2A00:23C8:8F9F:4801:A0C8:3A80:F8F2:381D (talk) 11:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Expansion

I have started expanding this page, adding things about Forster's life (particularly the last fifty years of it), summarising his first three novels, and expanding the introduction to the article. -- Jason Finch 22 March 2006 15:02 (GMT)

Humanism

I reintroduced some of the text about Forster's humanism; after all it is at the heart of his work ("only connect"). I have grouped the "humanism" and "sexuality" categories under the heading "key themes", which seems to fit better than "overview". I have also added a reference to "What I believe" where Forster outlines his worldview. --Daniel Spichtinger 9 July 2005 14:47 (UTC)

Vandalism

Categories were vandalised (completely removed) by Ringlord:- 21:12, 8 July 2005 Ringlord (removed superfluous genre listing). No-one seemed to notice! Categories were restored 18th Aug 2005. The page seems to be becoming prone to such vandalism, probably by "gay-bashers". Please watch for it and repair. --Anon, 18 Aug 2005 4:23 (UTC)

Vandalism again!

Edward Morgan Forster was changed into Ecstasy Mother Fucker and several other stupid changes were made. Undid all of them. Agree with the "gay-bashers" hypothesis! Caro kunz82 21:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Forester link

I'm sorry, but what kind of illiterate would you have to be to mistake "Forster" for "Forester"? More to the point, is it likely such a person would be looking him up in the first place? If C. S. Lewis doesn't have a link to Percy Wyndham Lewis I don't really see why this page has been singled out for the "Surnames for Dummies" treatment. --62.255.232.46 00:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Wheres the machine stops ??????????? Probably his most visionary work predicting the internet and instant messaging 100 years ahead of its time !!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.208.125.209 (talk) 22:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC) This article refers to Forster's famous epigram but doesn't say what it is. What is it? And why is it so famous? what were the perdonimant themes of E.m. Forster's works? What was unique about his style?

The epigram is 'only connect', though the article does not really explain what it means. The themes are stated in the infobox. I don't believe his style was unique. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 11:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Forster's criticism of Henry James

Jason Finch softened my comment that Forster harshly criticized Henry James' The Ambassadors. Frankly, I think "harsh" was a soft word for Forster's blast at James. The key comment from Forster's essay on the novel:

"The beauty that suffuses The Ambassadors is the reward due to a fine artist for hard work. James knew exactly what he wanted, he pursued the narrow path of aesthetic duty, and success to the full extent of his possibilities has crowned him. The pattern has woven itself with modulation and reservations Anatole France will never attain. Woven itself wonderfully. [I can understand Jason's comment about "ironic" discussion. Forster is obviously and rather clumsily getting ready for the Big Diss.] But at what sacrifice!

"So enormous is the sacrifice that many readers cannot get interested in James, although they can follow what he says (his difficulty has been much exaggerated), and can appreciate his effects. They cannot grant his premise, which is that most of human life has to disappear before he can do us a novel."

Anybody who says that most of life "disappears" from a novelist's work is making a really, really harsh criticism, in my opinion. Forster follows up with much more on how James supposedly left out almost everything important from his books. Personal disclaimer: I think Forster's essay on The Ambassadors is misguided and often simply wrong, and did much to injure (unjustly) James' reputation in the decades immediately following his death. I comment on this in the Henry James article. Fortunately, the damage was mostly temporary, though some might disagree (smile). Casey Abell 16:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

My Wood

I disagree, "My Wood" can be considered a short story and/or an essay.

Except it's not fiction. The essay is part of the "Abinger Harvest" collection of essays and other miscellaneous pieces. Every Google reference I've seen on "My Wood" refers to it as an essay. So why list it as a short story? Casey Abell 12:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

New biography under development

Not too sure if this should be included somewhere:
A new biography of E. M. Forster is on the way. The author is Wendy Moffat, an American academic who promises on her website to "chart Forster’s gay identity during the most important decades in gay history". Bloomsbury will publish the biography, to be called A Great Unrecorded History, in 2009 or 2010.

• TimesOnline Book reviews
• Wendy Moffat home page -- Ashley VH 10:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

'Explicitly homosexual'?

The article reads, 'His posthumously published novel Maurice tells of the coming of age of an explicitly homosexual male character.' Surely openly homosexual would be better than explicitly homosexual, which might suggest quite the wrong thing? Even if openly isn't the right word, there should be a better word to use than explicitly. Skoojal (talk) 06:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Explicit means "fully and clearly expressed or demonstrated; leaving nothing merely implied; unequivocal", and is therefore entirely appropriate. "Openly" is certainly not appropriate, since Maurice is not able to be openly gay in his society.Gymnophoria (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Personal Life

This article is more about his writing, it really needs expanding with more information about himself as a person.Gymnophoria (talk) 12:43, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. The article is pretty shallow concerning Forster's private life. There's a new biography quite enlightening about that subject: A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster by Wendy Moffat, Picador, 2011. For instance, did anyone knew that Forster had been sexually molested as a child? (In March 1891, the 12 year-old Morgan was walking in the woods near Eastbourne and he was approached by a pedophile. The man exposed himself to Morgan and asked him to have a hand job.) Or that his first happy love affair was with an Egyptian tram driver named Mohammed el-Adl?—Ana Bruta (talk) 00:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs more content regarding his private life and its influence on his work. One almost needs to read between the lines to find out he was in fact gay. If anyone would like to expand the article, there have been many articles recently written about Forester's homosexuality after the release of Damon Galgut's book "Arctic Summer". For instance, this review by Edmund White may be a good place to start: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/06/forster-love-story/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.91.136 (talk) 12:00, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Arctic Summer, Unfinished Novel

Forster (died in 1970) never finished his novel Arctic Summer. The novel was finished in 2014 by a playwright named Damon Galgut. - Verbum Veritas (talk) 21:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Reason for declining knighthood in '49?

I've seen speculation suggesting it concerned his sexuality and his desire to avoid scrutiny, but I can't find a truly reliable source asserting that or any other explanation. Anyone know of a source that might elucidate? Snow -I take all complaints in the form of rap battles- 17:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Two Queries

First, if Forster inherited £8,000 (now worth over £800,000), how come £1,735,000 was in sovereigns? Second, although he lived near Stevenage as a boy, he presumably must have moved to Kent to be a day boy at Tonbridge School. Poshseagull (talk) 17:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Broken Link?

New to all this, so bear with me, but it looks like there's a broken link under Notable Works > Literary criticism > The Creator as Critic and Other Writings. Leads straight to a 404. Anyone know what to do with this?

Qazx1427 (talk) 06:10, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

My Policeman

Worth mentioning? From Jacobin.com: The new movie "My Policeman," starring Harry Styles, is inspired by novelist E. M. Forster’s 40-year relationship with policeman Robert Buckingham that began in 1930. The details of that romance are stirring — much more so than what we get in the film.16:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)~

English or British?

The long-standing description of Forster has been "English", born in "England". Two anonymous IP accounts have recently changed this to "British" and born in "United Kingdom" three times, here, here and here, but without any explanation. Which is the correct/ preferred styling? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

My initial thoughts (without looking anything up) are "Do we know (or can we at least be fairly sure) how Forster and his friends would have described it?" and "If we're reasonably confident of that, are there any good reasons (wiki policy etc) to not do it that way?"

I just searched Wikipedia's MOS for mentions of "United Kingdom" and found nothing relevant, but maybe my search skills aren't great. The ordinary Wikipedia article "United Kingdom" says that (outside particular legal contexts) people from England can choose whether to represent themselves as "English", "British", "a citizen of the UK", and that none of them are incorrect or preferred. So I'm inclined to think I'm right (what a surprise I would think that) that Forster's preference – or the best guess about that – ought to be good.

I'll see if I can ask the person who changed it – maybe they know something we don't. TooManyFingers (talk) 15:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

(Oops. Forget it, it's already been repaired.) TooManyFingers (talk) 15:35, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Source of one sentence

In the Themes subsection, at the end, it says:

"In a way, this is anticipation of the concept of human beings shedding national identities and becoming more and more liberal and tolerant."

1. Whose idea is this?

2. In WHAT way?

The reason I ask: the sentence I quoted sounds as if it might be a very good but not quite finished idea, and there is no particular reference given for it, making me wonder if it's original research – or if there's somewhere that I can look up the other half of it. :) TooManyFingers (talk) 14:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)