1905 visit to Italy with mother

1905 visit to Italy with mother

• 1905 visit to Italy with mother

• First part written when he was 23

• A novel about tourists written by a tourist.

• Not a novel about Italy and Italians, but about what Italy does to English people.

• Novel about Lucy Honeychurch and her growth. A Bildungsroman.

• Novel about Mr Emerson’s philosophical views (a mouthpiece for Forster)

Vitalism. Life-affirming philosophy.

• Vitalism. Life-affirming philosophy.

• Pagan emphasis on the physical. Pan,

• Nature must be given her dues.

• Love and passion are a part of life, and nothing to be ashamed of.

• Repress the body, and you strangle the soul.

Aspirations to philosophical depth but often Forster superficial.

• Aspirations to philosophical depth but often Forster superficial.

• Heavy-handed symbolism.

• Allusions to Dante, Ruskin, Pater.

• Clumsy use of mythology.

• Hazy poetical language

• Best at social comedy.

• Can invest insignificant gestures or happenings with great meaning. Banality, everydayness becoming a spy of important truths.

Parable hiding Forster’s desire of”being himself,” of coming out of the closet.

• Parable hiding Forster’s desire of”being himself,” of coming out of the closet.

• Novel reflects Forster’s uneasiness with heterosexual love stories. Cf. Diaries (published 2011) “Weariness of the only subject I can and may treat – the love of men and women & vice versa”

• Tries to encode homosexuality in heterosexual personal relations.

England vs Italy

• England vs Italy

• Italianate characters vs English-English characters (see George’s kiss vs Cecil’s kiss)

• Aestheticism vs Socialism.

• Medievalism vs Renaissance

• Rigidity vs. ease

• Propriety vs impopriety (p. 40)

• Self-control vs instinct

• Life denial and life acceptance.

• Indoors vs outdoors

• Darkness vs light

The novel follows Lucy’s spiritual growth: “Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions—her soul” (ch. 9)

• The novel follows Lucy’s spiritual growth: “Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions—her soul” (ch. 9)

• From darkness to light

• From confusion to a vision (a view): “it was as if he had made her see the whole of everything at once!” (end of ch. 19, p. 191).

• Novel about the conversion of Lucy from England to Italy in 3 phases:

• from England to Italy (Florence)
• From Italy to England: engagement to refined, but life- denying Cecil Vyse.
• From England to Italy: engagement to unconventional, sensuous George

• .

Rev. Beebe believes in coincidence, a characteristic of romance, but George refuses it.

• Rev. Beebe believes in coincidence, a characteristic of romance, but George refuses it.

• Miss Lavish: accidental fairy godmother.

English snobbishness. The Signora “a cockney”! “Ill-bred tourists.” friendly advice at the Pensione etc.

• English snobbishness. The Signora “a cockney”! “Ill-bred tourists.” friendly advice at the Pensione etc.

• Victorian prudishness (pp. 70-71)

• Tourists (Miss Lavish, Lucy in Samta Croce)

• Satire of imitation of English social life in Italy: “Was this really Italy?”

• English expatriates in Florence. Italophiles unable to integrate. Mr Eager p. 67).

Suburbia: ideals of “kindly affluence” “inexplosiv religion” “dislike of paper-bags, orange-peels, an broken bottles”.

• Suburbia: ideals of “kindly affluence” “inexplosiv religion” “dislike of paper-bags, orange-peels, an broken bottles”.

• Concept of vulgarity vs gentility.

• Social barriers in England vs Italy.

• Conformity. “Life … was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests, and identical foe. In this circle one thought, married and died” Outside was “vulgarity”

View. Central metaphor.

• View. Central metaphor.

• Of the Arno. Of “magic Florence.” Of the sky

• But also from Windy Corner. (Ch. VIII):

• In contrast with room:

• Windy Corner’s drawign room; darkness of curtained room
• .Cecil viewed as connected to a drawing-room. .

• Phaeton and Persephone.

• Pan.

• Medievalism = asceticism, refusal of the body. (title: ch. VIII and ch. XX); Cecil, “medieval like a Gothic statue”). Victorian aesthetics of medievalism (Ruskin)

Myth of Persephone: from world of the dead back to life. Spring.

• Myth of Persephone: from world of the dead back to life. Spring.

• Lucy: from witnessing death to discovering love.

• While Lucy’s education tells her the kiss is wrong, her nature tells her it is right. Excusing herself with Charlotte: “I simply slipped into those violets” Ch. 7, p. 79.

Post-Victorian, turn-of-the century, Edwardian spirit. In the wake of Ruskin, Pater, the aesthetes

• Post-Victorian, turn-of-the century, Edwardian spirit. In the wake of Ruskin, Pater, the aesthetes

• Only first part about Italy

• Second part in England

• Curtained drawing-room p. 88 vs Italian sunlight.

• However, among people who have returned from Italy

• Influence of Italy on English people. English Italianate…

• Compare George’s and Cecil’s kisses.

Pensione Bertolini

• Pensione Bertolini
• Charlotte Bartlett p. 18, p. 45, 86
• The clever lady, Miss Lavish A parody of the “new woman”. p. 21
• The clergyman Mr Eager (p. 28, 56
• Cecil “ (Gothic vs Greek) p. 93 “A room with no view” p. 114, Cecil’s kiss (p. 115) un inglese italianato” p. 118

The Emersons (p. 26)

• The Emersons (p. 26)

• George always met at the margins of civilization
• Out of doors; in moments of natural outburst;
• Murder, outing with Italian lovers, violets, pond

• Lucy

• Music p. 14,
• Her discontent. 45
• What Italy does to people p. 62
• The violets 75

• Mr Beebe

• (Freddy)

Picturesque, e.g. p. 19

• Picturesque, e.g. p. 19

• “Pernicious charm of Italy” p.25

• Italians perceptive but superficial p. 39

• Miss Lavish’s Italian plot “Love, murder, abduction revenge” 54

• Murder episode (pp.46- 51)

• The cab-driver and his girlfriend (Phaeton and Persephone)

• In Italy “any one who chooses may warm himself in equality , as in the sun”

Very few encounters with actual Italians. Mostly people seen on the street, noisy, lively, pictursque.

• Very few encounters with actual Italians. Mostly people seen on the street, noisy, lively, pictursque.

• Traditional views.

• Italians are violent: murder scene.

• Italians as lovers unencumbered by conventions . Phaeton and Persephone.

Edwardian age: signs of the Victorian code relenting.

• Edwardian age: signs of the Victorian code relenting.

• In social life , class barriers coming down. Socialism.

• Women beginning to aspire to equality.

• Art gives more space to emotion and sexuality.

• Reflections in the novel:

• Playing tennis vs reading in the library
• Bathing in the nude (kind of christening)

A place where anything may happen.

• A place where anything may happen.

• Ch. V, : Florence “ a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things.”[…] “Was there more […] the power, perhaps, to evoke passions, good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a fulfillment?” ( p. 69).

• As in O’Faolin, D.H. Lawrence and other 20th cent. Writers, a place of freedom and sexual expression.

Lucy “returned with new eyes”

• Lucy “returned with new eyes”

• Cecil: “Italy had quickened [him] not to tolerance but to irritation” at “local society [that] was narrow” .