': the Forster's Visions of a Queer Utopia
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Billy Budd 45 homosexual activist Edward Carpenter, a friend and admirer of walt "I've sighted a sail in the storm I...] She has a land Whitman,wholivedtogetherwithhisyoungerworking-classpartner George Merrill . Caxpenter was to have an important influence on E.M. of her own where she'Il anchor forever'': The Forster,whoidentifiedthefiiendshipwithCarpenterandMerrillashaving British Melville Revival, Bi.//}7 Bwdd, and E.M. providedthecreativeimpulsewhichpromptedhimtobegintowritehjs Forster's Visions of a Queer Utopia homosexuale#tw!.ch/"#grroma#Afa#rJ.cein1913.Inhispublications, Caipenterpromotedanidealisedviewofhomosexuality,citingMelville's HannaRochlitz Omoo and Typee .in loldus (190Z) aLnd The Intermediate Sex (\908) to illustrate male friendship-customs in the Polynesian societies. He also The British Melville revival constitutes something of a unique propagatedademocraticsocialisminspiritedwithhisidealof"Love,the BelovedRepublic"-thismotto,takenfromSwinbume'spoem"Hertha", phenomenoninliteraryhistory.Thevarioustributariesthatwereeventually resurfacesinForster's1938essay"What1believe",andappearsinscribed tounleashthefreshetwaveoftheAmericanauthor'sposthumousfame onaribbonwombyanudeForsterinacontemporarypaintingbyPaul and popularity have been extensively surveyed by Hayford, Parker and Caqmuswhichbearsthatessay'sname(Martinandpiggford2). Tanselle(1988).Onejmportantwellspringwaslocatedinlatenineteenth- centuryLondon.Melvillewasstilllivingatthistime,buthadpassedinto Another ardent admirer ofMelville's work was D.H. Lawrence - obscurityinhishomecountry.AcrosstheAtlantic,however,anincreasing himselfprofoundlyinfluencedbyCarpenter-whoseSrwcJz.esj.#C/as".c number of people were becoming interested in his work; and their 4merj.ccr#£J./erc!/wre(1923)containstwochaptersdevotedtoMelville. enthusiasmwasnotdoomed-toperishinisolation.Agoodproportionof Lawrence and Forster had a difficult personal relationship, but this did them were artists and social idealis`ts, connected with various Socialist notpreventForster'spraisingLawrenceas"theonlypropheticnovelist orgahisationsincludingtheworkingmen'smovement-amongthemDante writingtoday"inhiscambridgelecturesinl927(subsequentlypublished Gabriel Rossetti, the Fabian Socialist Henry S. Salt, and William Morris. as Aspects a//fee N?ve/), and commending the insightfulness of his Manyofthemwerelivingonthebordersofsocialandsexualconvention, studiesofthatearlierprophet,HermanMelville(Forster,Aspec/s99). Further devotees of Melville with whom Forster was connected included andbetweenthemthereexistedfar-flungnetworksofacquaintanceship,` T.E. Lawrence "of Arabia", who praised A4ody-Dj.c4 as a "Titanic" exchange of ideas and mutual influence. Melville's writings, with their book"distinguishedbygreatnessofspirit"(qtd.inHayford,Parkerand celebrationsofcomradeshipamongmenofvariouscultures,appealedto Tanselle 751, n.64); the dramatist G. 8. Shaw, and the writer Edward them, particularly A4lody-D7.ck which "by style and subject-matter [. .] GarnettwhohadcorrespondedwithMelville;aswellasseveralmembers couldnurtureaclass-bridgingphilanthropicidealismnotwithoutanelement oftheBloomsburycircle,especiallyVirginiaWoolf,LeonardWoolf,who of seductive eroticism" (Hayford, Parker and Tanselle 742). This novel remainedacloselifelongfriendofForster's,andLyttonStrachey,with acquired an extraordinary status among British Melville enthusiasts, to whom friendship was rather more tenuous, however. the point where, in the decades before 1920, it seems to have assumed a talismanic function in the covert testing for a shared literary sensibility The 1920s saw a more widespread revival of public interest in the works of Herman Melville. At the forefront of this development was (I-Iayford, Parker and Tansel le 745f.). John Middleton Murry, husband of Katherine Mansfield and friend of OneoftheseearlyEnglishMelvilleenthusiastswastheauthorand the Lawrences. Muny published most of his articles on Melville in the 46 PERSPECTIVES Billy Budd 47 IVo/jo# o#c74/fee#¢ec4m, for which Forster was writing in 1924. That Forster, had been its librettist, the opera would have turned out quite sameyearofl924alsosawthepublicationofMelville'slateunfinished differently (Furbank 282). Britten took the hint, and the idea for ajoint novellaBz./fyB"ddintheLondonconstableeditionofMelville'scollected operaprojectwasbbm.ThesubjecttheyeventuallychosewasMelville's works. Murry's reviews subsequently played an important role in the Bi.//yB#dd,whichBrittenhadfirstencounteredthroughForster'sAspects canonisationofBj.//};B"d#asMelville'sliteraryandspiritualtestament a//¢e IVove/ (Mitchell, Reed and cooke 4 I 1, n.5); and the edition they (Parker55-60).Inl927,ForsterdiscussedBi.//yJ}#c7dinhiscambridge usedwasthel946editionbytheirmutualfriendwilliamplomer(Crozier lectures, citing it as an example for the proplietic quality in literature. 12, and source-internal evidence). Alsointhe1920s,ayoiingergenerationofhomosexualauthorsbegan I have, as I hope, succeeded in conveying some idea of the close theirengagementwithMelville.Forster'sfriendsamongtlieseincluded connections that the British Melville reception had with the multi~ severalwriterswhowere,orwouldeventilallybecome,closelycormected generational network of queer British artists and intellectuals. A with the composer Benjamin Britten. Among them was the author and considerable number of these knew E.M. Forster; and many looked to editorWilliamP]omer,whotaughtA4ody-D/.ckatanEnglishlanguage him as a friend and mentor. In this context, A4¢#r/.ce holds a position of school in Tokyo in Japan in 1927 (Plomer 222). He was also to produce central importance. Because of its homosexual content, Forster never the first separate-volume edition ofBz./dy B#cJJ in I 946, and later became attempted to publish the novel during his lifetime. Instead, he would over Britten's librettist for G/or7.¢#cr (1953) and the three Church Parables. the years lend the manuscript to many of his trusted friends to read. To Anotlier Melville enthusiast was W.H. Auden, whose poem "Herman this network of friends, A4:¢"ri.ce represented a touchstone ofForster's Melville"(1939)containsintertextualreferencestoB!.//yB#c}d,andwho "true" artistic and personal vision. For even though Forster grew to be a analysed"ThepassionofBillyBudd"in71foeE#cfea/ec7F/ood(1950). well-known public persona in Britain, not least because of his regular Auden was a close friend not only of Forster's but also of Britten's, broadcasting work for the BBC's Radio Three, which he started in 1931, whoseearlypoliticalandaestheticdeveldpmentheinfluencedgreatly.In heneverpubliclycameouta.shomosexual;itwasonlythepublicationof 1937Brittenwrotetheincidentalmusicfor7lfoe,4sce#/a/F6,aplayby A4oorz.ce in 1971, the year after his death, that finally made the issue of Auden and Christopher Isherwood, another friend ofForster's. It was his sexual orientation an "officia]" aspect ofE.M Forster. during the production of this play that Forster first met Britten, upon TheeponymousheroofA4a#ri.ce,asuburbanmiddle-classEveryman, whose career he was to have a momentous influence a few years later: firstfallsinlovewithclive,acambridgeHellenist.Theirchastelyplatonic in1941,BrittenwaslivingintheUnitedStates,togetherwithhispartner, relationship breaks up after three years, however, because Clive, the tenor Peter Pears, and was considering to emigrate there, as Auden succumbing to the heteronormative pressure exerted by a homophobic and Isherwood had already done. It was the reading of an article by society whose views he has intemalised to a high degree, abandons Forster -on the 18th century Suffolk poet George Crabbe - that made Maurice in pursuit ofa heterosexual lifestyle. Maurice has to struggle thesuffolk-bomcomposerrealisethathemustretumtoEnglandoritchell, with numerous problems, such as the hostile or indifferent reactions of Reedandcooke362,n.9).Furthermore,Forster'sartidledirectedBritten's doctors, his own ambiguous feelings about his homosexuality, and his interesttowardsCrabbe,anditwasCrabbe'spoem"TheBorough"that ownclassprejudice,beforeheeventuallyestablishesaloverelationship yieldedthematerialforhisfirstsuccessfulopera,Pe/crGrj."cs(1943). that also includes physical fulfilment with a young working-class man When,inl948,BritteninvitedForstertogivealectureatthefirstAldeburch namedAlec.MauriceandAlecwill-sothen`ovel.'shappyendingpromises Festival,ForstertalkedaboutPe/erGr;.wes,playfullyhintingthatifhe, -spend the rest of their lives together, even though this means they will 48 PERSPECTIVES Billy Budd 49 be living outside society. utopia, with the novel's textual reality serving its author as a place of ThehappyendingisprecededbyadramaticclimaxasAlec,whois psychologicalretreatandasourceofemotionalcomfort.Autobiographical evidencecertainlyindicatesthatForsterwasinthehabitofrevisitinghis to emigrate to the Argentina, decides at the last moment to remain in texts, and of re-engaging with his fictional characters on an emotional EnglandwithMaurice.Maurice,whohasgonetoSouthamptonDocks level (cf. Beauman 223 and Forster, Commo7?p/crce 203f.). toseehimoff,experiencesaprivatetriumphoflovewhenAlecfailsto It has been convincingly argued that in A4cr"rj.ce, Forster can turn up and the boat sails without him: ultimately be seen to reject the Greek model of a platonic homosexual [Maurice] watched the steamer move I. .] she was heroic, relationshipiredominantamongvictorianhomosexualintellectuals-in she vias canying away deatll. I...] She was off at last, a favour of a Carpenterian model in which carnality