Mobility and Cultural Constraints in E.M. Forster’s Maurice and Stephen Spender’s The Temple: Portrayals of Homosexuality in Early 20th-Century Literature

Författare

Felicia Pasanen

Summary, in English

E.M. Forster’s Maurice (1971) and Stephen Spender’s The Temple (1988) were written at the beginning of the 20th century and they both portray narratives of what life could look like for men who experienced attraction towards other men at the time. In this essay I examine how homosexuality is represented in Maurice and The Temple, and in what ways the portrayals of homosexuality in the two novels reflect the society that they were written in. Previous research has shown that taking cultural context into account is an important aspect of creating a deeper understanding of literary works in relation to the time they were written in. This essay builds on research that has already been carried out on Maurice, and further discusses the work side by side with The Temple to create a more nuanced understanding of the experiences of homosexual men in the early 20th century. By doing a contextual analysis focusing on how the characters in the novels navigate experiences of mobility and cultural constraints within different spaces and spheres, this essay brings a new perspective to the cultural context of early 20th-century literary works.

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