“THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF TODAY”: E. M. FORSTER’S ESSAYS
Keywords
E. M. Forster, essays, art, culture, translationAbstract
This paper aims to illustrate E. M. Forster’s role as a public intellectual, through the analysis of his 1930s and 1940s addresses, essays and broadcasts, mostly included in the volume Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Here, the author proposes his ideal of culture in response to the political and social events of his time – an era of crisis and change, in which writers are required to rebuild civilization. In this context, Forster underlines the need to defend liberal values, despite their flaws and inherent contradictions, against the threat of totalitarianisms in Europe.
It comes as no surprise that his political writings have not been translated into Italian, in line with the late reception of Forster’s works in Italy and with the literary polysystem of the target context. The essay The New Disorder (1941) represents an isolated case: it was translated in the periodical Il Mese (London, 1943), together with the articles by authors who were still unknown in Italy or silenced by fascist censorship. In this essay, Forster opposes the harmony of art to the political notion of order supported by the Nazis, to which the title ironically alludes. “In the bosom of this disordered planet”, art is perceived as an antidote to the troubles of a world which is drifting.
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