Photographs and Photography in the Writings of E. M. Forster and his Contemporaries

E. M. 福斯特及其同时代人著作中的照片和摄影

• 批准号: AH/D500605/1
• 负责人: Graham Smith
• 金额: $ 3.73万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2006 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FD500605%2F1
• 关键词: Photographs; Photography; Writings; E.; M.

In a letter of 1901 to one of his mentors at Cambridge, the young E. M. Forster linked his own literary style to photography, writing, 'I think I have the photo graphic gift of which you spoke, but till I'm sure 1 can do no better, I don't mean to use it unreservedly'. Forster touched on photography again in Aspects of the Novel {1927) and in 1929 he identified the snapshot character of Sinclair Lewis's writing as the distinguishing feature of the American novelist's style. 'The method throughout is the photographic', wrote Forster, 'Click and the picture's ours'. There is a clear echo of this statement in the famous pronouncement made by Christopher Isherwood in 'A Berlin Diary' {1937): 'I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording not thinking'.In addition to discussing photography in the context of literary theory, Forster incorporated fictitious photographs into all his novels, beginning with Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907) and A Room with a View (1908), continuing in Howards End (1910), and culminating in A Passage to India {1924). Although some of these 'photographs of the mind,' may appear to be commonplace, they are invariably repositories of memory and, in the context of Forster's narratives, often allude to past and future tragedies. Photographs of art and architecture take the place of the objects they represent and serve as metaphors for the cultures that produced them. While their first level of meaning is as souvenirs, such photographs also perform complex roles, signifying leisure, distinction and taste. Portrait photographs give form and meaning to secondary characters and enable Forster to introduce them into his story at times and in places that do not allow for their live presence. In addition, they perform everyday functions as images of kinship and remembrance, typical functions of vernacular photographs in Europe in the early twentieth century. In the case of a photographic portrait that Forster wove into the whole fabric of A Passage to India, the photograph exemplifies by contrast the exceptional rather than the conventional. I have already presented these ideas in a preliminary fashion in two articles-'The Past in the Present: Photographs of Classical Art in the Writings of E. M. Forster' (2003) and 'Between Past and Future: Portrait Photographs in the Novels of E. M. Forster' (forthcoming 2006). The present book length study will develop more fully the thesis that photographs and photography contribute significantly to the construction, rhythm and symbolism of Forster's novels.Forster was by no means the first writer to incorporate photographs into his writings. In 1868 Fyodor Dostoevsky had a photograph prepare the reader for the first appearance of Nastasya Filippovna in The Idiot, and in 1897 Henry James employed a cabinet photograph in a similar manner in What Maisie Knew. Among Forster's contemporaries, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Sinclair Lewis and others used portrait photographs in similar ways. In France, Marcel Proust incorporated photographs into A Ia recherche du temps perdu, a novel Forster admired unreservedly.My goal in the present study is to examine the foregoing themes in detail, considering Forster's ideas with respect to photography and literary style, and examining how he and his contemporaries incorporated photographs and photography into their writings. My study will also attempt to explain the prevalence of these ideas and motifs in modernist literature, and will propose that explanations for the development of 'photographic' styles of writing and for the popularity of photographic motifs in fiction may be attributed in part to the modernity of photography itself. As Walter Benjamin made clear in the 1930s, photography was a new technology that enabled individuals to record, organize and comprehend modern life. It is therefore not surprising that it played important formal and symbolic roles in modernist literature.

在1901年写给他在剑桥的一位导师的信中，年轻的E。M.福斯特将自己的文学风格与摄影联系起来，他写道：“我想我有你所说的摄影天赋，但在我确定我不能做得更好之前，我并不打算毫无保留地使用它。福斯特在《小说面面观》（Aspects of the Novel，1927）中再次触及摄影，并于1929年将辛克莱·刘易斯作品中的快照特征确定为这位美国小说家风格的显著特征。福斯特写道：“自始至终的方法都是摄影的”，“点击一下，照片就属于我们了”。克里斯托弗·伊舍伍德（Christopher Isherwood）在《柏林日记》（A Berlin Diary，1937）中的著名声明清楚地呼应了这一说法：除了在文学理论的背景下讨论摄影之外，福斯特还将虚构的照片纳入他所有的小说中，从天使害怕踩踏的地方（1905年）开始，《最长的旅程》（1907年）和《看得见风景的房间》（1908年），继续在《霍华德庄园》（1910年），并在《印度之行》（1924年）中达到高潮。虽然这些“心灵的照片”中的一些看起来很平常，但它们总是记忆的宝库，在福斯特的叙述中，它们经常暗示过去和未来的悲剧。艺术和建筑的照片取代了它们所代表的物体，并作为产生它们的文化的隐喻。虽然它们的第一层意义是作为纪念品，但这些照片也扮演着复杂的角色，象征着休闲，区别和品味。肖像照片赋予次要人物以形式和意义，使福斯特能够在不允许他们现场出现的时间和地点将他们引入他的故事。此外，它们还作为亲属关系和纪念的图像发挥着日常功能，这是世纪早期欧洲本土照片的典型功能。在福斯特将一幅摄影肖像融入《印度之行》的整个结构中的情况下，照片通过对比来突出特殊而不是传统。我已经在两篇文章中初步提出了这些想法--《现在的过去：E. M.《在过去与未来之间：E·福斯特小说中的肖像照片》。M. Forster'（2006年出版）。本书的篇幅研究将更充分地展开这一论点，即照片和摄影对福斯特小说的结构、节奏和象征意义作出了重大贡献。福斯特绝不是第一个将照片融入作品的作家。1868年，费奥多尔·陀思妥耶夫斯基（Fyodor Dostoevsky）为读者拍摄了一张照片，为纳斯塔西娅·菲利波夫娜（Nastasya Filippovna）在《白痴》中的首次亮相做好准备，1897年，亨利·詹姆斯（Henry James）在《梅西知道什么》中以类似的方式使用了一张内阁照片。在福斯特的同时代人中，詹姆斯·乔伊斯、弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫、辛克莱·刘易斯和其他人也以类似的方式使用肖像照片。在法国，马塞尔·普鲁斯特将照片融入了福斯特毫无保留地欣赏的小说《A Ia recherche du temps perdu》中。我在本研究中的目标是详细研究上述主题，考虑福斯特关于摄影和文学风格的想法，并研究他和他同时代的人如何将照片和摄影融入他们的作品中。我的研究还将试图解释这些想法和主题在现代主义文学中的流行，并提出对“摄影”写作风格的发展和小说中摄影主题的流行的解释可能部分归因于现代性。摄影本身。正如沃尔特·本雅明（Walter Benjamin）在20世纪30年代所说的那样，摄影是一种新技术，它使个人能够记录、组织和理解现代生活。因此，它在现代主义文学中发挥重要的形式和象征作用也就不足为奇了。