刘庆雪Notes on English Character

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Lesson TenNotes on the English CharacterE. M. Forster

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Discussion What do you think of Englishmen? Can you use some words to describe them?

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Find more information on the author Guide to reading Find more information on English character The main idea of the text List the notes the author decides to show the English people How does the author succeed in analyzing his ideas to his readers?

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E. M. Forster was born on New Year‘s Day 1879 in London and died on June 7, 1970. His early upbringing was dominated by three women: his great-aunt, his maternal grandmother and his mother.

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He went to King‘s College, Cambridge in 1897, where he studied classics and history. There he came to know future fellow members of the Bloomsbury Group ,among whom was Virginia Woolf. It was at Cambridge that he began to form his political and social attitude and that he began to write.

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The Bloomsbury group got its name after the bohemian part of London called Bloomsbury. The group consisted of a group of intellectual Englishmen, who with their liberal sight of the society and their beliefs in the importance of beauty and friendship formed a united front criticizing the Victorian England during the early decades of the 20th century and had their golden era during the 1920s. Most of the group‘s members had a common past from Trinity College三一学院 in Cambridge, and were influenced by both Bertrand Russell and the philosopher G.E. Moore.

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Among the groups more famous members are the writer Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard Woolf. Virginia's brothers the psychoanalysist Adrian Stephen, Thoby Stephen and their sister Vanessa Bell were also members of the group. Vanessa's husband Clive Stephen was also in the group. Other members in the group were historian Lytton Strachey, writer E.M. Forster and the economist John Maynard Keynes.

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E. M. Forster Between 1905 and 1910 Forster published four novels: Where Angels Fear To Tread踩踏(1905)伦 敦落雾 A Room with a View(1908) The Longest Journey(1907) Howards End(1910) Forster didn‘t publish any new novel until A Passage to India (1924) came into being.

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Works of E. M. Forster

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A Room with a View(1908) It based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. The first part of the novel is set in Florence, where the young Lucy Honeychurch is visitng with her older cousin Charlotte Bartless. Lucy witnesses a murder and becomes caught between two man, shallow, conventional Cecil Vyse and George Emerson, who kisses Lucy during a picnic. The second half of the novel takes place at Windy Corner, Lucy's home on Summer Street. She accepts a marriage proposal from Cecil. The Emerson become friends of the Honeychurches. Finally Lucy overcomes prejudices and marries George. The story develops the conflict between spontaneous love and conventional codes.

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Howards End 霍华德庄园 (1910) In this book t

he author is exploring the

possibility of achieving a harmony between commercialism and spiritual values. It was a story that centered on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. The book brought together the themes of money, business and culture. "To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it." (from Howards End) The novel established Forster's reputation.

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All the four novels share a gentle irony that reveals the moral and emotional deficiencies of the English upper and middle classes.

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Guide to Reading Is it an easy task to write about a nation s character in a short essay? How does Forster make this task manageable?---no easy task. Different people may have different views as regards the same nation. --- Forster narrows down the discussion of the English nation to the male members of the middle classes. He offers us several notes on the English character.

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Main idea Every nation has defects. Forster depicts the characters with a gentle irony that reveals the moral and emotional deficiencies of the English upper and middle classes, who lack a spontaneous capacity for passion and intuition. In his opinion, the English character should be improved by the imagination, mysticism神秘主义, and sensitivity to nature.

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Structure of the Text Part I (Para. 1): The character of the English is essentially middle class. Part II(Paras.2-3): The English public school system and its role in character building. Part III(Paras.4-8): The undeveloped heart of the middle class Englishman.