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The Tame in Pursuit of the Savage: The Posthumous Fiction of E. M. Forster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

June Perry Levine
June Perry Levine*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
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Abstract

The posthumous homosexual fiction of E. M. Forster indicates a marked impulse in all his work: the tame in pursuit of the savage. The connection is to be, in part, emotional but will have political meaning as well. In Forster's situations, power—which resides in the world of the tame—is suspect because it rests on institutionalized force; in contrast, the sexual potency of the savage arises out of his being a “natural” man in the Rousseauean sense. This tension parallels the dynamics of Forster's private life, but its manifestation in his art does not simply reflect a personal preoccupation: the literature of attempted liaison with the savage serves a public position—egalitarian, anti-imperialistic, and internationalist—as well as a romantic ideal. In Maurice, in “The Life to Come” and “The Other Boat,” and even in his first three novels, the sexual and political ideas reflect the intention, albeit somewhat disguised, to subvert the prevailing ethos.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 99 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 72 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1984

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