room with view

This article is about the novel by EM Forster. For the film adaptation by James Ivory see Room with a View (film) .

Room with a view (in the original English A Room with a View ) is a novel by EM Forster from the year 1908 . It tells the story of a young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, who meets an unconventional young man, George Emerson, and falls in love with him during a stay in Italy. However, social conventions and her upbringing prevent her from realizing her true feelings, and she first becomes engaged to another man on her return to England. Only after meeting George again and having many entanglements does Lucy realize that she loves George. In the end, Lucy finds the courage to put love and passion above social conventions and expectations.

The action of the novel takes place in Italy and England; it is both a romantic love story and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. Zimmer mit Aussicht , along with other novels by EM Forster, is one of the most important English novels of the early 20th century. The film adaptation of the novel by Merchant Ivory Productions with Helena Bonham Carter , Julian Sands and Daniel Day-Lewis in the leading roles is particularly well known .

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Part 1

A young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin Charlotte Bartlett, at the same time as her chaperone traveling with, are as tourists in the early 20th century Italy go. The action begins in the Pension Bertolini in Florence , where Lucy and Charlotte arrive and, disappointed, have to find that they do not have the rooms with a view of the Arno promised when booking . Two of the guest house's fellow guests, George Emerson and his father, offer to swap rooms, which Charlotte immediately refuses because she senses an obligation to possibly unsuitable fellow guests. Only after mediation by another guest, the Anglican clergyman Mr. Beebe, do they accept the offer.

Since the other boarders avoid the Emersons as not befitting and too unconventional, Lucy tries to avoid them, but she meets them anyway. So she meets the two by chance while visiting the church of Santa Croce. While exploring Florence alone, she happened to witness a dispute between Italians that ended in a fatal knife attack. She is so shocked at the sight that she passes out. In this situation, she is found by George Emerson. The two finally take a break on the Arno, where they talk about what has happened. George, who previously seemed silent and melancholy , announces that he wants to live immediately. Lucy asks George to keep quiet about the incident, fearing that her behavior may not have been common decency for a young woman.

The local pastor of the English church in Florence, Mr. Eager, and Mr. Beebe organize an outing for the guests of the Bertolini Pension: Lucy, Charlotte, the Emersons and Miss Lavish, a writer. After a carriage ride overland with Italian drivers, you pause outside of Florence for a scenic view. The group is divided into smaller groups. Since Charlotte would rather spend time with her newly found friend, the boarder Emilia Lavish, she tries to get rid of Lucy by sending Lucy to the two clergymen. In search of Mr. Beebe and Mr. Eager, Lucy is sent to George by the Italian drivers due to communication difficulties. She appears so surprisingly at George in the middle of a field of flowers that he forgets all restraint, takes her in his arms and kisses her. At this moment, however, Charlotte appears, who immediately separates them and urges them to leave for the pension. The group drives back in the carriage, while George tries to follow on foot, even though he gets caught in a thunderstorm.

Back at the pension, Charlotte urges Lucy to leave for Rome immediately . While Lucy is packing, Charlotte speaks to George, who has since arrived, and admonishes him to keep quiet about this "incident". Lucy and Charlotte want to go to Rome, where they want to meet a friend, Cecil Vyse, and his mother.

Part 2

The second part of the novel starts again in England , in Windy Corner, the Honeychurch family estate in Surrey . Lucy has returned to her family home from her vacation in Italy. Cecil is now a frequent guest of the family and makes Lucy a marriage proposal (for the third time), which she accepts this time.

Lucy hears from a neighbor, Sir Harry, that he is looking for new tenants for his empty house and suggests two sisters, Miss Alans, Charlotte and Lucy met at Pension Bertolini and who are looking for a new home. Lucy's mediation is ultimately thwarted by Cecil. He met the Emersons by chance in the museum in London and passed them on as a malicious prank to Sir Harry, because he wanted to annoy the snobbish gentleman with unconventional and, in his opinion, unsuitable tenants. Lucy is very upset at the news that the Emersons are moving into the vacant house instead of the Miss Alans. Above all, however, she is concerned about how to behave towards George when they meet for the first time since their vacation in Italy.

When the Emersons move in, they first meet Freddie Honeychurch, Lucy's brother, and they meet again with Mr. Beebe, who is the pastor for the Honeychurches' congregation. Freddie spontaneously suggests swimming in the pond nearby, which George and Mr. Beebe respond. The three men are getting more and more cocky when they take a bath, which finally culminates in the fact that they play soccer with their clothes off. At that moment a group of strollers, consisting of Cecil, Lucy and their mother, who are embarrassed by the sight, passes by. For Lucy, it's an unexpected first encounter with George.

After Freddie invited George to tennis, George visits the Honeychurch family for the first time. After the tennis game, Cecil reads to the other guests in the house from a novel that he would like to make fun of. During the reading it quickly becomes clear to Lucy and George that the scene being read describes their kiss during the excursion in Florence. You both get very embarrassed but say nothing about it. When the group of visitors wants to go from the garden into the house, George uses an unobserved moment to kiss Lucy again.

Lucy retreats to her room in the house and consults with Charlotte, who is visiting, about what to do. In addition, she makes violent allegations to Charlotte, because the novel must have come from Eleanor Lavish, who has processed her kiss in her novel. The information on this can only come from Charlotte, who, however, has sworn Lucy to absolute silence, but has not adhered to it herself. Charlotte and Lucy ask George for a chat while George passionately confesses his love to Lucy. Lucy insists that she is engaged to and loves Cecil and sends George away. On the same evening, however, she broke off her engagement to Cecil, but not without emphasizing that it was not due to another man.

Lucy tries to avoid another meeting with George, and therefore wants to join the Miss Alans who are planning a vacation trip to Greece. When she returns from London with her mother, where she has discussed the details of the trip to Greece with the Miss Alans, they go to Mr. Beebe's to pick up Charlotte. Charlotte and Lucy's mother go to the church next door; Lucy stays behind because she'd rather wait at Mr. Beebe's house. There she meets Mr. Emerson in the study. In the course of the conversation with him, she learns how much George is in love with her and that he will move away so as not to have to see her anymore. Lucy finally admits that she broke up with Cecil. Mr. Emerson insistently promises her that she is in love with George and that she should have the courage to tell everyone this. Lucy sees the light and she finally understands her own feelings.

The novel ends with George and Lucy - now married - in the Pension Bertolini, where they spend their honeymoon.

attachment

Later editions of Room with a View have Forster's Text View without a Room attached , a text that Forster originally published in 1958 in the Observer and the New York Times Book Review . The appendix tells of the further fate of George, his father, Lucy and the Honeychurch family.

Lucy and George have three children; Mr Emerson Sr. lives with them until his death. George is a conscientious objector during World War I, which throws the family into trouble and financial hardship because George loses his job with the British Railways. For financial reasons, Lucy's brother Freddie is forced to sell Windy Corner after his mother's death, so that the Emersons have no chance of being able to live there. During World War II, George immediately volunteers and rises to the rank of corporal, and he discovers that there are women other than Lucy. Lucy is bombed out like her daughter during the war and loses her belongings. During the war he also passed through Florence, but never found the Bertolini Pension, the place where they met. He tells Lucy that the view is still there, but the room for it can no longer be found.

Forster also pretends that he heard about Cecil Vyse through an acquaintance. During the First World War, Cecil was probably employed in the secret service. Forster says that at a party outside of Alexandra he heard from a guy who classified Beethoven's music as acceptable for English parties, because Beethoven is not a hated German, but Belgian - exactly this kind of sneaky joke is typical for Cecil.

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Literary genre

A room with a view has often been classified as an educational novel that describes Lucy's mental and emotional development. Lucy is portrayed in the novel as a possibly passionate person whose nature is obscured by conventional upbringing. Through her experiences in Italy she learns to be more spontaneous and to trust her own feelings more than bet on what is “decent”. In addition, Zimmer mit Aussicht is also a love story with a conventional (happy) ending, as well as social comedy and satire of the behavior of English tourists in Italy. But Zimmer mit Aussicht goes beyond a romantic comedy: Forster uses the progression of the plot to introduce utopian ideals such as love and comradeship, truth and passion and to argue against social conventions and expectations.

Places and times of the action

The action takes place in Italy and England in the early 20th century and before the First World War. One of the most important themes that run through the novel is the contrast between English stiffness and Italian naturalness. In the first part, which takes place in Italy, there are a multitude of allusions to Italian painting, sculpture and architecture, to classical mythology and beyond that to sun, life and love. It is not a simple contrast in which England is only negatively and Italy only positively, but Forster's approach is more complex. The Pension Bertolini is a rather dubious establishment (run by an English "Signora" who speaks Cockney); Lucy also meets not only beauty but also violence in Italy. Forster's main concern in depicting Italy is to work out the weaknesses of English culture by contrasting it with Italy.

subjects

Tourism is an issue in the first part in particular; English tourists in Italy are portrayed ironically by Forster. In Zimmer mit Aussicht, however, Forster goes beyond a mere parody of the English tourist, because with the novel he also shows how a character like Lucy develops through her experiences in a different culture at home, in her own culture.

Literary allusions

Cecil quotes some stanzas that are not specifically assigned (" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height " etc.). They come from Alfred Tennyson's ballad The Princess .

After solving her engagement to Cecil Lucy sings a song from The Bride of Lammermoor (dt. The Bride of Lammermoor ) by Sir Walter Scott . The song ends with the lines 'Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, - / Easy live and quiet die'. The Bride of Lammermoor is about a young woman who is pushed into an engagement to an unwanted man.

Position in literary history

Classification in the work of the author

In 1901, 1902 and 1903 Forster stayed at the Pensione Jennings Riccioli in Florence.
(Photo from 2013)

EM Forster began the novel Room with a View around 1902 and did not finish it until 1908. In the meantime, he wrote and published the novels Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and The Longest Journey (1907). Forster processed his experiences as an English tourist in Italy in Room with a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread . Lucy's tour of Italy is similar to the tour that Forster himself took through Italy. In Room with a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread Forster not only processed his experiences, but also used the novels to work out the contrasts between the English and Italian lifestyles. In the novels The Longest Journey and the later Howards End (1910) Forster's examination of English norms and customs is even more critical.

Position in literary history

Forster is a contemporary of modernists like DH Lawrence or James Joyce , but still uses a realistic narrative style. A room with a view is one of the Edwardian novels in which a realistic style is still maintained, but through cultural comparisons (in Forster e.g. between England and Italy) a critical light is thrown on English society.

By processing his own tourist experiences in Italy in Zimmer mit Aussicht , EM Forster follows a tradition of authors such as George Henry Borrow, Alexander Kingslake or George Gissing , who also process their travel experiences in literary works.

reception

Reception upon arrival

There were also some unfriendly reviews after the novel was published, but the book received a warm reception from the majority of critics. This also included Virginia Woolf , who reviewed the novel in the Times Literary Supplement on October 22, 1908. The book was and is very much appreciated by the public.

Impact history

Room with a View is a popular novel among English audiences. The novel was translated into German and filmed several times.

Film adaptations

→ Main article : Room with a view (film)

The novel was filmed in 1985 under the direction of James Ivory . Actors: Maggie Smith (as Charlotte Bartlett), Helena Bonham Carter (as Lucy Honeychurch), Denholm Elliott (as Mr. Emerson), Julian Sands (as George Emerson), Simon Callow (as Mr. Beebe), Judi Dench (as Eleanor Lavish) and Daniel Day-Lewis (as Cecil Vyse).

In 2007 there was another film adaptation of the novel by the BBC, with Nicholas Renton , directed and Elaine Cassidy as Lucy Honeychurch, Rafe Spall as George Emerson, Laurence Fox as Cecil Vyse, Timothy Spall as George Emerson's father, Mark Williams as Mr. Beebe and Sophie Thompson as Charlotte Bartlett.

literature

Text output

• A room with a view . Edward Arnold, London 1908. (first edition)
• A room with a view . Introduction by Malcolm Bradbury . Penguin Classics , New York 2000, ISBN 0-14-118329-2 .
• Room with a view . A Lovestory. Translated by Werner Peterich . Nymphenburger, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-485-00942-3 ; Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-15900-8 .

Audio book

• A room with a view . The English original version unabridged. Audio CD. Bertz + Fischer , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86505-558-3 (audio book, read by Wanda McCaddon ).

Secondary literature

• David Bradshaw (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to EM Forster . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-54252-4 .
• Mike Edwards: EM Forster: The Novels . Pagrave, Houndmills, Basingstoke 2002, ISBN 0-333-92254-9 .

Web links

• E-book at gutenberg.org (English)
• Plot (english)
• A Room with a View in the British Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Judith Scherer Herz: A Room with a View . In: David Bradshaw (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to EM Forster . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-54252-4 , pp. 147 .
2. ^ Mike Edwards: EM Forster: The Novels . Palgrave, Houndsmill, Basingstoke 2002, ISBN 0-333-92254-9 , pp. 16, 42, 48 .
3. ↑ Judith Scherer Herz: A Room with a View . In: David Bradshaw (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to EM Forster . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-54252-4 , pp. 138 .
4. ^ Mike Edwards: EM Forster: The Novels . Palgrave, Houndsmill, Basingstoke 2002, ISBN 0-333-92254-9 , pp. 16, 48 .
5. ^ Ralph Pordzik: The Wonder of Travel: Fiction, Tourism and the Social Construction of the Nostalgic . Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-5041-X , p. 120 .
6. ↑ Oliver Stallybrass: Notes . In: EM Forster: A Room with a View , ed. by Oliver Stallybrass. Penguin, London 1978, p. 248.
7. ↑ Oliver Stallybrass: Notes . In: EM Forster: A Room with a View , ed. by Oliver Stallybrass. Penguin, London 1978, p. 253.
8. ^ Mike Edwards: EM Forster: The Novels . Palgrave, Houndsmill, Basingstoke 2002, ISBN 0-333-92254-9 , pp. 182 .
9. ^ Hans Ulrich Seeber (ed.): English literary history . 5th edition. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02421-3 , pp. 373 .
10. ^ Ralph Pordzik: The Wonder of Travel: Fiction, Tourism and the Social Construction of the Nostalgic . Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-5041-X , p. 1 .
11. ↑ Oliver Stallybrass: Editor's Introduction . In: EM Forster: A Room with a View , ed. by Oliver Stallybrass. Penguin, London 1978, pp. 15-17.
12. ^ Philip Gardner (ed.): EM Forster: The Critical Heritage . Routledge, London 1973, pp. 10-12, 101-122 .