Aspects of the Novel"The Clark lectures ... delivered under the auspices of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the spring of 1927"--Note. |
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action aspect beauty become begin better called cause characters close comes complete connected course critic daily death dream effect emotional English everything example existence experience eyes facts fantasy feeling fiction final flat follows give goes hands happens happiness heart human idea important interest James kind Lady lead lecture less light literature lives logic look matter means meet memory method mind Miss moral nature never novel novelist occurs once passed pattern perhaps phrase play plot possible prophet Queen question reader reason relation remain rhythm round scene seems sense sentence side sometimes sort sound stand story talk tell thing thought touch true truth turn understand universe voice whole writer young
Popular passages
Page 118 - THE whole intricate question of method, in the craft of fiction, I take to be governed by the question of the point of view— the question of the relation in which the narrator stands to the story.
Page 30 - One does it to cheat one's self and to stop one's mouth - but that's only at the best for a little. The wretched self is always there, always making one somehow a fresh anxiety. What it comes to is that it's not, that it's never, a happiness, any happiness at all, to TAKE. The only safe thing is to give. It's what plays you least false.
Page 226 - With this sharpest perception yet, it was like a chill in the air to him, it was almost appalling, that a creature so fine could be, by mysterious forces, a creature so exploited.
Page 119 - For me the whole intricate question of method resolves itself not into formulae but into the power of the writer to bounce the reader into accepting what he says — a power which Mr.
Page 120 - I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever', pipes up Esther, and continues in this strain with consistency and competence, so long as she is allowed to hold the pen. At any moment the author of her being may snatch it from her, and run about taking notes himself, leaving her seated goodness knows where, and employed we do not care how. Logically, Bleak House is all to pieces, but Dickens bounces us, so that we do not mind the shiftings...
Page 186 - You won't leave me, Dinah ? You'll keep close to me ?" " No, Hetty, I won't leave you. I'll stay with you to the last. . . . But, Hetty, there is some one else in this cell besides me, some one close to you.
Page 213 - Instead of looking at the pictures in my art books, I now have to read them." Print, along with all old languages, including speech, has profited enormously from the development of the new media. "The more the arts develop," writes EM Forster, "the more they depend on each other for definition.
Page 42 - Oh, but that doesn't appeal to me," and all I can promise is that sentimentality shall not speak too loudly or too soon. The intensely, stifling human quality of the novel is not to be avoided; the novel is sogged with humanity; there is no escaping the uplift or the downpour, nor can they be kept out of criticism.
Page 45 - Yes — oh, dear, yes — the novel tells a story. That is the fundamental aspect without which it could not exist. That is the highest factor common to all novels, and I wish that it was not so, that it could be something different — melody, or perception of the truth, not this low atavistic form.
Page 232 - The thing his novel is about is always there. It is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Aspects of the Novel Clark lectures The Clark lectures, Trinity College, Cambridge University |
| Author | Edward Morgan Forster |
| Contributor | Harcourt Brace & Company |
| Edition | 2 |
| Publisher | Harcourt, Brace, 1927 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Oct 10, 2007 |
| Length | 250 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |