E. M. Forster's Perspective on The Art of the Novel

The novel is not an art that can be created by everyone, yet people, who know how to write a novel and what a novel wants can create art. The novel is a prose narration, and it must have a principal length; however, it is not just limited to these features. The novel, which has been going on for years, begins in England with Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe in 1719. Before the 18th century in England, romance, fiction, stories, and novellas appeared. The “novel” literary art existed in the 18th century in England, and the starting point of the novel is Robinson Crusoe by Defoe. Even though the latest developed genre is the novel, it has still succeeded in becoming the most popular genre in literature. Forster is a great literary critic in English literature, and he shares his ideas on the novel, literary art, and literary criticism in his 1927 work Aspects of the Novel.

Forster has complex attitudes towards the novel; sometimes he views the novel as an art and sometimes as an objective way to mirror reality. For Forster, the novel should focus on an artistic side like music and be close to real-life concepts like novel characteristics. The aim of the novel is to touch the hearts and souls of people whenever it wants, rather than being a historically developed literary genre. When it achieves social and individual values, its success comes out, and it becomes a great novel in literature. Indeed, the art of the novel collects most of the other literary arts and conveys them fluently to the reader. When a novel is thought of, one of the first things that comes to mind is that it contains a story, and most people cannot think of a novel without a story.

Forster thinks that the story forms the basis of the novel. The story existed before the novel, and its existence dates back to primitive times. What people tell each other becomes a story, and the inherent sense of curiosity makes the story popular. That’s why the story plays an important role in the novel for Forster. The story is like the column of a house or like the spinal column of a human in the novel genre, and it keeps the novel alive. The story tells the events in chronological order, and its main purpose is to arouse curiosity in the audience. Forster exposes two lives in everyday life and thinks that everyone indeed lives two lives: a life measured by time and a life measured by values. He does not accept the story as important because of its primitiveness, and he thinks that a life measured by values is more important. A good novelist must deal with a life measured by values. However, these two life concepts should not be separated from each other in the novel because the story describes the events based on time, and if there is no story in the novel, it leads to a fault. If the concept of time is removed from the novel and the story is destroyed, all the other elements of the novel disappear, and its value vanishes. 

Another aspect of the art of the novel for Forster is the characters. Most of the things in the novel are managed by people, and the actors are people because a novel without characters cannot be imagined. The actors of the story may also be animals, but Forster states that humans are an important factor in the novel because they are the first person that comes to mind when talking about people, and animals are rarely used as characters in the novels. The characters are the works of the author, and there is a connection between the author and the person because it is the author who creates the person. The author gives a name to the people, gives them lifelike behaviors, and makes them talk. People may not even be able to understand the person close to them in reality because that person's true personality may not always be seen. In everyday life, it is not possible for us to understand each other fully, and we cannot see inside people, and they may not be able to see inside us. There is always uncertainty in human relations. People think that they know each other only from the outside. However, this is a rough identification, and people really cannot know and understand others in all aspects. However, the novelist can present the characters to the reader in all aspects, and the reader can have information about both their outer and inner worlds. That is, the readers can know the characters in the novel better than the people they actually know in real life. Forster states that novelists are inspired while forming their characters and create their characters in the light of this inspiration. Since the author and the creator of the novel are the same people, the readers have more information about the characters. Forster has the idea that the characters can become realists when they fit into the novel's unique structure. Moreover, he thinks that the novel has two types of characters: one that is easily recognized by the readers, never changes, and does not make people. Another one is complex, changes constantly, and has different features. For Forster, both are important for a novel. 

The plot is another important feature of Forster's view of the art of the novel. In the plot, the events are told based on cause-and-effect relationships. According to Forster, the plot asks the readers to use their intelligence and memory because of the need to grasp the events and their order. Real readers remember the plot, characters, and story with their memory and use their intelligence to establish cause-and-effect relationships between the events. The plot measures the readers’ ability to grasp and recall. Additionally, Forster claims that the plot should have mystery, and the mystery is revealed later.

The other feature of the novel that is emphasized by Forster is fantasy, which has an important place in the novel. The author uses fantasy to present the reader with imaginary and unreal-life things. In this context, the author expects harmony from the readers, because, for some readers, the novel may be incomprehensible and inassimilable. Forster says that fantasy does not directly describe supernatural things, sometimes it can also implicitly describe the supernatural. Using imagery and mythology, novelists can also dive into people's personalities and psychology and harmonize both the real world and the imaginary world in the novel.

What’s more, Forster uses another aesthetic term for the art of the novel, and that is prophecy. He asks novelists and readers to put humor aside and be humble at this point. This prophetic feature in the novel allows the novel to go beyond itself and awaken a feeling in all of humanity. In other words, prophetic novels have more realistic and universal approaches than fantastic ones.

Furthermore, form and rhythm are two of the most important features that a work of art should have. Since the novel is a work of art, it must have an aesthetic form and an artistic rhythm. Forster calls them patterns. In the novel, the plot should have beauty, and a novel with beauty also supports the form, that is, the plot is the part that lies at the basis of the form. The characters and events in the novel help define the form. The form aspect of the novel shows that Forster sees the art of the novel as the art of painting. The rhythm feature also resembles the art of music. Any voice or timbre in the novel needs to appear once in a while and affect the reader emotionally and artistically, such as the song that a character sings once in a while, or the crowing of the birds noticed from time to time. E. M. Forster, who has a famous position on the novel and criticism in English literature, shares his ideas on the art of the novel with readers and audiences in essays and literary criticism. The features of the novel mentioned above show Forster's perspective on novels, novelists, and readers.