Although Forster’s first novel was published in 1905, his works did not attract much critical consideration until the late twenties. The reason why his novels did not gain a serious consideration for a long time is that he was considered very much a writer in the traditional line of the English novel of the nineteenth century, rather old fashioned and uncomplicated as compared to the other writers of the twentieth century, such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. It was only in 1927 that the first critical article of major importance appeared. »A Passage to Forster: Reflections on a Novelist« was an article written by I. A. Richards with the purpose to introduce Forster’s works in America. By that time Forster had a considerable reputation in England, but was very little known abroad. I. A. Richards comments on the »oddness« in Forster’s works which, »if we can track it down, may help us to seize those other peculiarities which make him on the whole the most puzzling figure in contemporary English letters.«* Richards points to Forster’s concern with the separation within society of the men of vision from the men of action, the attitude that is later taken by many critics of Forster. But what I. A. Richards call'ed »the most puzzling figure in contemporary English letters« started to attract the attention of critics again, and most recently a new approach has recognized his debt to Bloomsbury. Forster’s association with the Bloomsbury group lead him to accept at least some of its credos, especially that of the importance of personal relationships, which is one of Forster’s main concerns and with which this essay will be mainly concerned. There is a transition from an overt treatment of this theme in Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View to a more subtle one in The Longest Journey, the novel in which Forster’s attitudes are set in a more symbolic way and where his social commitments are given with less emphasis than in his latter novels, i. e. in Howards End and A Passage to India. At the same time The Longest Journey sets best, I think, Forster’s ideas about the dilemma of the intellectual of his time and comes closest to the realization of his concept of »prophecy«. It is the novel which Lionel Trilling describes as »perhaps the most brilliant, the most dramatic, and the most passionate of his works«. In particular what has attracted very close attention in recent years is Forster’s aesthetics as is presented in his most important work of literary criticism, Aspects of the Novel published, like Richards’ essay, in 1927. Many of the features Forster put in this work were not considered of much importance for a fairly long time, but with the new trends in modem criticism they have become important and very much in demand. This is especially true for the New Criticism with its stress on poetic or symbolic values. Some of the features have been applied to the study of the novel in general, as well as of the novels of individual novelists. »Rhythm« and »symbol« seem to be of particular relevance in this respect, and a great number of studies has been produced, using Forster’s aesthetics, not only concerning Forster’s own works but the works of many other authors as well. Malcolm Bradbury points out that »the application of the aesthetic principles it [Aspects of the Novel] states or assumes to Forster’s own fiction has shown how much more modem than we have cared to assume Forster’s methods and literary intuitions actually are«. In this essay another of the aspects will be applied to Forster’s works, the one Forster calls »prophecy«, and we shall try to see how far it can be pursued in his novels and with what results.
