Em Forster's Maurice
Is “Maurice” a hopelessly flawed text, or a thoughtful adaptation of the novel form to the subject matter and a strong intervention in debates of the time?
E.M Forster dedicated his novel “Maurice” to a “happier year”, affirming his intention of the novel’s purpose as an insight into the future evolution of sexual desire and relationships, leading some to attach significance to the text as a protagonist of controversial debate of the time . Forster delayed publication of Maurice for 57 years waiting for a time where wider concepts of desire could be explored without recrimination . Indeed, it has been argued that the novel was self-prophetic in predicting experiences Forster had not had himself, who later described his own sex life within the framework that Maurice had provided .
Forster’s autobiographical parallels with Maurice has fuelled debate as to whether the novel was significant as “a strong intervention in debates of the time” or alternatively a “hopelessly flawed” text. It is submitted at the outset that neither dogmatic view is entirely authoritative regarding the significance of Maurice and this analysis explore the premise that perhaps the flaws associated with Maurice were a necessary evil in presenting E.M. Forester’s gay ideology.
Forster’s self proclaimed significance of the novel as a symbol of the future is juxtaposed with Maurice reflecting on the past . In the “Terminal note” to the novel, Forster asserts that Maurice’s escape with his lover in the ending “belongs to an England where it was still possible to get lost. It belongs to the last moment of the greenwood.” The juxtaposition is further highlighted by the fact that whilst Maurice is set in Georgian England, the lovers apparently disappear to an England of the past, however the irony here is that they escape to an escape that was not possible in 1913 . Forster justified this on the basis that a...
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