摘 要

爱·摩·福斯特在20世纪英国文坛及世界文坛上占有重要地位。“联结”主题是福斯特小说中永恒不变的主题。他的小说反映了在旅行故事中的跨文化交流。不同国家、年龄、性别的人们通过旅行，改善发育不良的心，达到真诚的联结。

短篇小说《离开科罗诺斯之路》描写了主人公卢卡斯的希腊之旅。在旅行之中主人公与不同人和事物进行了不同的联结。从他和历史的联结来说，福斯特模仿希腊神话故事，通过分析卢卡斯与俄狄浦斯的相似之处建立了他与历史的联结。从卢卡斯和他女儿的联结来说，联结的主要方式是解除因为对文化的不同理解和不当的交流而造成的误解。从他和自己的联结来说，精神上的联结需要通过沉思以及自我实现来达到。

福斯特通过“联结”体现了人际关系中真实完全的理解和关爱、温暖、智慧和灵魂会在这个逐渐疏离的世界融合。

关键词：离开科罗诺斯之路；福斯特；联结

Abstract

E.M. Forster played an important role both in the British literature and the world literature in the 20^th century. The connection theme is the ever-lasting theme in Forster’s novels. His novels reflect the cross-cultural communication through travelling stories. People of a particular country, age, gender improve "undeveloped heart" by travelling to achieve sincere connection.

Short story The Road from Colonus described the protagonist Mr. Lucas’ travelling experience in Greece. Forster illustrated connection of the protagonist with different people and objects. The connection between Lucas and history was established by the discussion of the similarities between him and Oedipus in Greek mythology. For Lucas and his daughter, they tried to break the barriers raised by variant cultural understanding and their inappropriate ways of communication. For Mr. Lucas and himself, the spiritual connection was enhanced by meditation and self-realization.

Forster referred connection as a true, complete understanding and loving in human relationships, from which, warmth, intelligence and soul could be infused into the alienated world.

Key Words: The Road from Colonus; E.M. Forster; connection

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Works 1

1.2 Literature Review 2

2 Connection between Lucas and History 5

2.1 Connection through Images 5

2.2 Connection through Experiences 6

3 Connection between Lucas and Ethel 8

3.1 Connection through Language 8

3.2 Connection through Spirit 9

4 Connection between Lucas and Himself 11

4.1 Connection through Meditation 11

4.2 Connection through Self-realization 12

5 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

The Theme of “Connection” in

The Road from Colonus

1 Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Works

E.M. Forster was regarded as one of the most important British novelists in the 20^th century (Forster, 2011, p.2). His reputation is highly dependent on his short stories, novels and the large-scale critic essays. His novels reflect the cross-cultural communication between people. They are of different countries, ethnicities, social statuses, genders and sexual orientations. Through travelling stories, they get together by communication. By these stories, he appeals people to perfect their “undeveloped heart” (Forster, 1936, p.68) and look at differences reasonably in order to achieve sincere connection. He is also well-known for his humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy (Crews, 2016), which makes him stand out from many of his contemporary writers. Furthermore, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 13 different years.

Forster (January 1, 1879, June 7, 1970) had a fantastic and academic way of thinking. The family and education background generated him a sort of unique individuality, and moderate skepticism. (Bloom, 1987) When he was only a baby, his father’s death and mother’s irresponsibility put him in tension. Furthermore, the education he received shaped him and his writing style. The responsibility of his later criticisms of the English public school (private) system lay largely on the Tonbridge School. Later on when he was at King’s College, Cambridge, he enjoyed the feeling of liberation at the campus. At this time, he was able to pursuit his own intellectual inclinations. There he became successful under scholarly tutors’ guidance and with lifelong friends’ companionship.

Many of his works were plotting with characters travelling to another country. In addition, this kind of experience on journeys would eventually exert great influence on their outlooks on life and world. Actually, E.M. Forster himself had particularly rich travel experiences. After he graduated from college, he travelled through Greece and Italy for two years. He got around India twice for an extensive travel. All the above mentioned travelling experiences served as material and muse for his creation.

His notable works include: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), A Passage to India (1924), Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971). Moreover, two story collections: The Celestial Omnibus (and other stories) (1911) and The Eternal Moment and other stories (1928) are taken highly of by the public.

The short story The Road from Colonus, is also a travel story of E.M. Forster. It was written in 1904, and later collected in the Celestial Omnibus, published in 1911. The story is divided into two parts. The first part tells a story that Mr. Lucas travelled to Greece accompanied by his daughter Ethel, along with another group of English visitors. When the old man was in youth, he was overwhelmed by Hellenism. Forty years later, he finally came to this dream land. However, he was disappointed that Greece and England were of no difference. One day, when they passed through an inn, which was in the shade of woods, Mr. Lucas found a spring from the trunk of a towering tree. The local people enshrined and worshiped the trunk for the fortune of nature. Mr. Lucas “was aroused by the shock—the shock of an arrival” (Forster, 2011, p.199). At that moment, he thought that he had found the meaning of Greece, England, the whole world as well as his own life. So he decided to stay in Greece. But Ethel and other English visitors couldn’t understand him and forced him to leave there. The second part of the story depicted the situation after the Lucas got home. When having breakfast in the apartment, the old man was complaining about the noises around him especially the sound of trickling water. Surprisingly Ethel read on the old newspaper that the night they left the inn, the inn was crushed by a collapsed tree. It was said that everyone stayed in the inn that night was killed, but Mr. Lucas was indifferent to the news.

1.2 Literature Review

As one of the greatest English novelists in the first half of this century, E.M. Forster’s most works were published during the period from the beginning of the twentieth century to the Second World War. The research into E. M. Forster is quite booming abroad and in China. However, most of the research focuses on his masterpiece A Passage to India and his long fictions, such as Howards End and A Room with a View. His short stories are rarely touched, especially The Road from Colonus.

Search on CNKI, only 8 Chinese essays are concerned with The Road from Colonus. From the perspective of intextuality, Wang Jing illustrated two main characters’ identity displacement and degradations by comparing it with Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus through persona structure in “Displacement and Degradations of Characters: Comparative Studies on The Road from Colonus and Oedipus at Colonus” (Wang, 2014) . Another scholar Xing Haixia compared Oedipus The King and this short story from the angle of intertextuality in “Intertextuality Research of The Road from Colonus By Forster And Oedipus The King By Sophocles” (Xing, 2012). From the perspective of humanism, Tang Xinzu used the novel as case study to explore his unique humanism in “A Brief Analysis of Humanism in The Road from Colonus” (Tang, 2015). From the perspective of connection, Lu Qi and Zeng Yixuan in “Pursuit And Failure Of “Connection”—An Analysis Of The Imitation And Adaptation of Myths And Archetypal Images in The Road from Colonus” spared no effort to explore Lucas' effort for "Connection" and final failure in the light of Forster's imitation and adaptation of Greek myth and archetypal images (Lu and Zeng, 2013). Shen Yan made a comprehensive appreciation towards The Road from Colonus in “Fantasy Illuminates Journey—An Appreciation of The Road from Colonus by Forster” (Shen, 2009). Yuan Yunbo in his essay “Analysis on Psychological Condition of the Aged in The Road from Colonus” analyzed elder people’s mental health in the short story (Yuan, 2014). In Ma Xiaohuan’s essay “Structure Rhetoric-Irony Parsing of The Road from Colonus” highlighted the differences between realistic and mythical lives (Ma, 2012). Last but least, in “Paralleled Journey, Different Destination—A Comment on Modern People’s Status Quo of Subsistence through The Road from Colonus” Ye Weifang expressed inanity and alienation of modern people (Ye, 2010).

Although some research has been conducted on this short story, yet few touch up the theme of “connection”. The disconnections, misunderstandings and conflicts among human beings in early England fascinated Forster. And he once wrote: “temperamentally, I am an individualist. Professionally, I am a writer, and my books emphasize the importance of personal relationships and the private life, for I believe in them.” (Forster, 1948, p.231). These thoughts blossomed into the fascinating theme: connection, which was to build sincere and friendly interpersonal relationship. According to the author, people have to communicate with the society and the nature to deal with contradictory so that they would finally understand, accept and integrate and made contributions to the whole harmony. (Chen, 2007)