Queer Forster (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) [Paperback]

Robert K. Martin (Editor), George Piggford (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226508021 | ISBN-13: 978-0226508023 | Publication Date: November 24, 1997 | Edition: 1

This groundbreaking volume presents a radical revision of gay criticism and focuses on E. M. Forster's place in the emerging field of queer studies.

Many previous critics of Forster downplayed his homosexuality or read Forster naively in terms of gay liberation. This collection situates Forster within the Bloomsbury Group and examines his relations to major figures such as Henry James, Edward Carpenter, and Virginia Woolf. Particular attention is paid to Forster's several accounts of India and their troubled relation to the British colonial enterprise. Analyzing a wide range of Forster's work, the authors examine material from Forster's undergraduate writings to stories written more than a half-century later.

A landmark book for the study of gender in literature, Queer Forster brings the terms "queer" and "gay" into conversation, opening up a dialogue on wider dimensions of theory and allowing a major revaluation of modernist inventions of sexual identity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It is no longer a secret that famed British novelist E. M. Forster was a homosexual (the posthumous publication of his gay-themed novel Maurice in 1971 made that perfectly clear), but academic criticism has been late in catching up with this news. Even when critics acknowledge Forster's sexuality they rarely discuss its relationship to his fiction. Robert K. Martin and George Piggford's Queer Forster collects 13 essays that analyze the writer's work--including The Longest Journey and his essays on censorship, India, and British politics--in the context of his sexuality and the social and political issues of his time. Forster's relationship to the Bloomsbury Group, many of whom were openly gay as opposed to Forster's more quite life, is discussed at length. More traditionally minded academics complain that this biographical criticism "limits" an understanding of a writer's work, but Queer Forster contains some of the most provocative and insightful contemporary writing on modern British literature.

From Library Journal

Designed for a relatively sophisticated academic audience, this work presents a collection of critical readings of E.M. Forster's work, focusing on his role as a demystifier "of relations and identities that a hegemony of the normative world would rather keep unexamined." In this sense, Forster is seen as much more than simply a "gay" writer. Indeed, another intent of the collection is to explore the concept of "queer" as opposed to "gay" theory. Certainly, Forster's sexuality had an important impact on his writing, but more significantly, his outsider status led him to explore more broadly the concept of "difference" and the ways in which the "normal" reacts to this difference. Various contributors examine the Nietzschean and Wagnerian undertones in his work; his place on the periphery of Bloomsbury; the influence of Edward Carpenter, Virginia Woolf, and others; his rejection of Platonism; and how India provided an apt setting in which to explore "queerness." While some of the writing is arcane, the work as a whole offers an interesting and useful perspective on one of the more important figures in 20th-century English literature. For scholarly literature collections.?David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 24, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226508021
• ISBN-13: 978-0226508023
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provides up-to-date research, September 18, 2000

By 

Mermaid (Northern Europe) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queer Forster (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) (Paperback)

E. M. Forster's homosexuality made him 'different' when it came to the public morals of English contemporary society. The essays in this book explore the intricate link between that fact and his fiction. It is not an easy read for a Sunday afternoon, but certainly it opens a new world for anyone genuinely interested in E. M. Forster, colonialism in literature, queer theory and twentieth-century literature. Indispensable from the scholarly point of view. A beautiful journey through the Forster-landscape, with many great vistas and precious finds.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Introduction from a Queer Angle, July 24, 2009

By 

Ford Ka (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queer Forster (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) (Hardcover)

I have often complained of poor quality of volumes put together by different scholars which offer nothing but a catchy title. This volume proves beyond any doubt that it is possible for a group of scholars (with editors who are in control of the project) to produce a volume which gives you a complete overview of a subject.
The volumes opens with an essay which retraces earlier critical approaches to the question of homosexuality in Forster's works and life. If you are interested in the subject, you can do nothing meaningful without reading it first. The other twelve essays aim first at establishing Forster's place within his period (e.g. through his relations with Carpenter and James) and then proceed to analyze a selection of Forster's work from a queer angle.
You can always ask for more but this is the best you can get.