Aspects of the Novel · Chapters
Chapters explained
Chapter companions for Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster.
Chapter 1
Dedication
The chapter is a brief dedication to Charles Mauron.
Chapter 2
Aspects of the Novel
Forster introduces the Clark Lectureship and sets the stage for his exploration of the novel as an art form. He defines story as a narrative of events arranged in time sequence, using Scheherazade's suspense as a key example. He distinguishes between story and plot, where plot adds causality, and introduces the concepts of flat and round characters, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the relationship between art and history, asserting that art stands still while history develops.
Chapter 3
Introductory
Forster introduces his lectures on the English novel by rejecting chronological and historical approaches in favor of a spatial metaphor: all novelists writing simultaneously in a circular room. He defines the novel minimally as 'a fiction in prose of a certain extent' (over 50,000 words), warns against pseudo-scholarship, and acknowledges the superiority of foreign novelists like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Proust. He pairs Richardson and James to illustrate timeless affinities, and emphasizes that criticism must avoid provincialism.
Chapter 4
II: The Story
Forster defines the story as the lowest and simplest literary organism, yet the highest factor common to all novels: a narrative of events arranged in time sequence. He contrasts the life in time with the life by values, arguing that while daily life may transcend chronology, the novel must always cling to the thread of story. He critiques Gertrude Stein's attempt to abolish time, deems it doomed, and illustrates the story's primitive power through Sir Walter Scott's The Antiquary, paraphrasing its opening to show how suspense and curiosity drive narrative.
Chapter 5
People
Forster shifts focus from story to character, exploring how novelists create people who differ from real humans. He contrasts the novelist's access to the hidden life with the historian's reliance on external evidence, and discusses how characters are born, die, eat, sleep, and love in fiction. Using Moll Flanders as a key example, he argues that characters feel real when the novelist knows everything about them, offering a completeness impossible in daily life.
Chapter 6
IV: People (Continued)
Forster continues his examination of characters in the novel, focusing on their interdependence and the devices authors use to manage them. He introduces the distinction between flat and round characters, discusses the importance of point of view, and argues that a novelist's power to 'bounce' the reader into acceptance is more central than strict adherence to a single viewpoint.
Chapter 7
V: The Plot
Forster defines the plot as the novel's logical, intellectual aspect, emphasizing causality over mere time-sequence. He contrasts plot with story, explores the tension between character interiority and plot demands, and uses André Gide's 'Les Faux Monnayeurs' as a case study of a novel that challenges traditional plot structure by mixing reality and art, including a central discussion about truth in life versus truth in fiction.
Chapter 8
VI: Fantasy
Forster defines fantasy as a literary mode that demands an 'extra payment' from the reader—an additional adjustment beyond the usual suspension of disbelief required by realistic fiction. He distinguishes fantasy from prophecy by their mythologies: fantasy invokes small, earthly gods (fauns, dryads, puns) while prophecy transcends to greater deities. Using examples like Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, and Flecker's Magic, Forster explores how fantasy creates its own stage through mythology, and he warns that criticism often loses touch with its subject, as the 'bird' of theory and the 'shadow' of the novel drift apart.
Chapter 9
VII: Prophecy
Forster defines prophecy in the novel not as foretelling the future or moralizing, but as a distinctive tone of voice—a song that arises from the fiction, often breaking the furniture of common sense. He contrasts prophetic novelists (Dostoevsky, Melville, D. H. Lawrence, Emily Brontë) with non-prophetic ones (George Eliot, Hardy, Conrad, Joyce), emphasizing that prophecy demands humility and suspension of humor from the reader. Using Moby Dick as a central example, he explores how prophetic fiction flows athwart action and surface morality, offering a sense of unity and song rather than reflection or workmanlike construction.
Chapter 10
VIII: Pattern and Rhythm
Forster returns to the main scheme of the lectures, introducing pattern (borrowed from painting) and rhythm (borrowed from music) as aesthetic aspects of fiction that spring from plot and characters. He illustrates pattern with two examples: Anatole France's 'Thaïs', shaped like an hourglass, and Percy Lubbock's 'Roman Pictures', shaped like a grand chain. He then discusses rhythm, first in the easy sense of repetition plus variation, exemplified by Proust's use of Vinteuil's little phrase, and then in the more difficult sense of a whole work's rhythmic unity, as in a symphony. He concludes that while pattern provides external form, rhythm stitches a book together internally and opens it out rather than rounding it off.
Chapter 11
Conclusion
Forster reflects on the future of the novel, arguing that while historical circumstances change, art remains static. He speculates on whether human nature can change and suggests that if it does, it will be through a new way of self-perception, which could transform the novelist's craft. He concludes by contrasting the onrush of history with a shy, crablike movement of the human mind.
Chapter 12
Endnotes
The endnotes provide references and acknowledgments for sources cited throughout the book, including works by Abel Chevalley, André Maurois, André Gide, James Joyce, Herman Melville, and Henry James, as well as commentary on translations and editions.
