E.M.

Forster's Aspects of the Novel began as a collection of lectures on fiction he gave at Trinity College,
Cambridge in 1927. He was talking about the novel from his role as a distinguished novelist. In other
words, his perspective is that of a writer thinking about the task of composing novels rather than that of
a critic whose only concern is reading and reception of literary works. At this point in his career, Forster
had already published his major novels Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a
View, Howards End, and A Passage to India.

Forster begins by saying that the only thing all novels have in common is that they are over 50,000
words. Beyond that, they are works of imaginative prose with a great degree of diversity. He says that
rather than attempting to study the novel historically, he will be concerned with what makes a novel a
successful work of art by trying to look at common elements of the craft of writing that go into
composing an effective novel. Although he admits that there are intuitive and emotional elements which
affect our appreciation of the novel, he argues that there are several important aspects to the craft of
the novel, namely: story, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. He then discusses each of these
individual elements in detail.

This is a rather long and complex work to summarise in its entirety, so I will outline Forster's
introductory chapter for you. I have also included a link to a complete enotes summary to this work
below, so you can access this to gain further information regarding the work as a whole.

In his first chapter, Forster presents some basic rules that act as a foundation to his further discussion of
the English novel. He defines various terms, such as a novel as being "a fiction in prose of a certain
extent," and then defines English literature as being any literature written in the English language,
disregarding geographical location. What stands out from this introduction is the way that Forster wants
to ignore time and periods in his examination of the novel. Rather he imagines a variety of novelists
sitting in a circle and writing their works, allowing them and their qualities to be compared regardless of
their context. He defines the title of the work as refering to the seven aspects that each section of his
book will refer to and study: story, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.

Out of the seven chapters, probably Forster's work is most famous for its discussion of character and his
introduction of the concept of flat and round characters. Looking at Dickensian characters, Forster
distinguishes between two types of characters. "Flat" characters are ones that have but one or two
defining characteristics and are not fully developed. "Round" characters are fully developed and
characters that the authors enable us to see their full psychological complexity. However, this is but one
of Forster's contributions to literature through this work, and the rest of this book is worthy of
attention.