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Forster fi Rst Encountered Billy Budd in 1926

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Forster fi Rst Encountered Billy Budd in 1926 . M. Forster fi rst encountered Billy Budd in 1926. Some twenty years later, he E embarked on a collaboration with Benjamin Britten and Eric Crozier, adapting Melville’s novella for the opera stage. The libretto they produced poignantly reaffi rms the Forsterian creed of salvation through personal relationships. This study presents an extensive exploration of Forster’s involvement in the interpre- Hanna Rochlitz tation, transformation and re-creation of Melville’s text. It situates the story of the Handsome Sailor in the wider context of Forster’s literary oeuvre, his life, and his life writings. In detailed readings, Billy Budd becomes a lens through which the themes, Sea-changes: patterns and leitmotifs of Forsterian thought and creative imagination are brought into focus. A close re-examination of the libretto sketches serves to shed new light on the Melville - Forster - Britten collaborative process in which Melville’s story was changed to fi t an archetypal array of plot and character types that is central to Forster’s own storytelling. The story of Billy Budd and its operatic adaptation Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville - Forster - Britten - Forster - Melville Sea-changes: Rochlitz Hanna ISBN: 978-3-86395-045-3 Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville – Forster – Britten This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License 3.0 “BY-NC-ND”, allowing you to download, distribute and print the document in a few copies for private or educational use, given that the document stays unchanged and the creator is mentioned. You are not allowed to sell copies of the free version. erschienen im Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2012 Hanna Rochlitz Sea-changes: Melville – Forster – Britten The story of Billy Budd and its operatic adaptation Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2012 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.ddb.de> abrufbar. Anschrift der Autorin Hanna Rochlitz e-mail: [email protected] Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde vom Fachbereich 02 Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Kassel zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie (Dr. Phil.) angenommen. Tag der Disputation: 6. Juli 2011. This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Online Catalogue of the State and University Library of Goettingen (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). Users of the free online version are invited to read, download and distribute it. Users may also print a small number for educational or private use. However they may not sell print versions of the online book. Satz und Layout: Hanna Rochlitz Umschlaggestaltung: Jutta Pabst Titelabbildung: Hanna Rochlitz © 2012 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-045-3 To my parents Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... xiii Copyright statement ........................................................................................................... xv List of abbreviations .......................................................................................................... xvi Note on citations and editorial practice ....................................................................... xviii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 19 Part one: Billy Budd: novella and opera .................................................................... 29 I.1. Transforming prose works into opera: some key concerns .................................. 31 I.2. Melville’s Billy Budd: the text and its readers ............................................................ 39 I.2.1. Textual history and textual problems ............................................................. 39 I.2.2. Early critical reception and post-1950 criticism ............................................ 41 I.2.3. E. M. Forster and Benjamin Britten in the tradition of British Melville reception .................................................................................. 46 I.2.4. The editions used by Britten and his librettists ............................................. 48 viii Contents I.3. “To quarry a play out of [Melville]”: the three main characters as raw material .............................................................................................................. 53 I.3.1. Methodological reflections and general observations .................................. 53 I.3.2. Billy ....................................................................................................................... 57 I.3.3. Claggart ................................................................................................................ 67 I.3.4. Vere ...................................................................................................................... 73 I.4. Billy Budd transposed and transformed: the libretto ................................................ 85 I.4.1. Adapting Melville’s plot .................................................................................... 85 I.4.2. Original Melville Material in the Libretto ....................................................... 91 I.4.3. Billy ....................................................................................................................... 92 I.4.4. Claggart .............................................................................................................. 100 I.4.5. Vere .................................................................................................................... 105 I.4.6. Further observations and conclusion ............................................................ 117 I.5. Musical structures: yet another inside narrative ..................................................... 121 I.5.1. Leitmotifs, narrative voice, and narrative perspective ................................ 121 I.5.2. “A family of motivic shapes”: the Mutiny “cluster” ................................... 123 I.5.3. Musical presences of the main characters: a brief overview ..................... 128 I.5.3.1. Billy .............................................................................................................. 128 I.5.3.2. Claggart ....................................................................................................... 129 I.5.3.3. Vere ............................................................................................................. 131 I.5.4. Tonal symbolism, the closeted interview, and salvation ............................ 134 I.6. Part One: summary and outlook .............................................................................. 141 Part two: E. M. Forster and the story of Billy Budd ............................................ 145 II.1. Forster reads Melville: the first encounter ............................................................ 147 II.1.1. Forster’s 1927 Billy Budd: good versus evil, a drama for two actors .......... 147 II.1.2. “Other claimants to satanic intimacy”: Forster’s queer decodings ........... 149 II.1.3. “Satanic intimacy”? Challenging the connection between homosexuality and evil .................................................................................. 159 II.2. Forsterian themes and narrative patterns ............................................................. 163 II.2.1. “Only one novel to write”: recurring themes and character types ......... 163 II.2.2. The ‘dark’/‘light’ character pairing in Forster’s fiction ............................ 167 II.2.2.1. Typology ................................................................................................... 167 Contents ix II.2.2.2. Saving “the English character”: ‘dark’ redeemed by ‘light’. ............. 169 II.2.2.3. “It takes two to make a Hero”? The ‘light’ saviour character as Other .................................................. 171 II.2.2.4. “Bring me a bath”: the homophobic ‘light’ character ....................... 173 II.2.2.5. Eternal pursuit: sexuality, violence and death in Forster’s fiction ................................................................................... 174 II.2.3. The Forsterian salvation narrative ............................................................... 178 II.2.3.1. “From confusion to salvation”: “travelling light” .............................. 178 II.2.3.2. “The salvation that was latent in his own soul”: connection with the Other as a means to connection with the self ..................... 181 II.2.3.3. Seizing the symbolic moment: human failure, “odious” behaviour, and the possibility of redemption .................... 182 II.2.3.4. “A land where she’ll anchor forever”: death, love and the salutary prophetic vision...................................... 185 II.2.3.5. “But he has saved me”: the strains and tensions of enforced salvation .................................... 188 II.2.3.6. Forster’s “Nunc Dimittis” – his final word on salvation? ................ 190 II.2.4. An affinity of literary imagination: some aspects of Forster’s and Melville’s narrative strategies .................. 191 II.2.4.1. Forster’s “inside narratives”
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