As a classic work of world literature, A Room With A View is successful to attract countless readers. It is often discussed from the perspective of Feminine. Scholars such as Li Yang, He Shuang discusses about the feminism in their dissertation and articles and XuYa once in her article also mentions “A Room With A View can be called a bildungsroman based on travel narrative”(2012:158).
There has as well been some humanism analysis in this novel. Forster absorbs the idea of liberalism and humanism, and combines the core of them in A Room With A View. From the view of growth, RuiYuPing(2004) says growth is a recurring theme in British literature. Bildungsroman constitutes an dispensable part in British literature, and British writers are keen on teenagers as protagonist has become a dramatic tradition in British literature.
Some researchers analyze from the perspective of symbolism, Lucy and other characters in A Room With A View, and the means of creating characters. There are several different uses of symbolism in the novel, such as the room with a view, violet, note of interrogation and so on. And what Lucy symbolizes is the focus of these researches. The study includes the discussion of the symbolism of characters and the methods and skills that the author used to create the person, Lucy.
What’s more, regarding to woman’s oppressed living statuses, most critics present their comment in terms of the culture and cultural conflicts. For example, Bob Doll analyzes Lucy’s struggles from indecision to fulfillment, emphasizing the heterogeneous culture’s significance. Other articles focus on the artistic skills in this novel.
Edward Morgan Forster(1879–1970) is an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. D. H. Lawrence once wrote to E. M. Forster, 'you are the last Englishman'.
Edward Morgan Forster is born in a middle-class family and his unpleasant early study in Tonbridge School in Kent contribute to his disgust to the British upper-middle-class. After he graduates from university, he visits Italy and Grace, and he is greatly impressed by their exotic culture. It strengthens his dissatisfaction with England rigid social order. His self-experience determines his literary thought. Hence, almost all of his long novels criticize the spiritual poverty of British upper-middle-class and all the protagonists strive to get rid of social and custom restriction to release themselves.源`自'优尔`.论"文|网[www.youerw.com
Mike Edwards chooses Forster's novels as his texts in his work E.M.Forster: the Novels (Analyzing Texts). He points out the importance of Forster's work.(Edwards, 2001:160). In the study of E.M.Forster, academics mainly focus on the following points: the theme of his work, the aspects of moral critic, the method of creation, and the perspective of aesthetic. Jeffrey Heath points out in his Kissing and Telling: Turning Around in “A Room with a View” that “Forster’s novel is about love, art, self-realization, Edwardian manners, feminism, values and their revision, exposure and concealment, completion and interruption, daily life and celestial life, the subconscious mind, language, myth - and so on.”(Heath,1994:393).
Nicola Beauman once in his book Morgan: A Biography of E. M. Forster said “The effect of knowing Forester was that he became a kind of supplementary conscience talked on to my own”(Beauman,1993:67). Forester’s admirers consider that it is impossible to value his writing while neglecting the man, because his wider cultural experience links with his status as a writer of literature. His work is considered as a storeroom of value by some critics. Other critics use the word ‘sage’ to describe him: Christopher Gillie in his book A preface to Forster said “he was the great liberal sage of the interwar and postwar periods.” (Gillie,1983:38).