Welfare State Romance
Abstract Forster’s works responded to the heated reformist debates surrounding the passing of the 1911 Insurance Act, and they engaged with the question whether a new social ethos of responsibility and care would need to precede, or whether it would flow from, institutional reform. What Howards End...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University PressOxford
2021
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198836179.003.0006 https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/57971990/oso-9780198836179-chapter-6.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract Forster’s works responded to the heated reformist debates surrounding the passing of the 1911 Insurance Act, and they engaged with the question whether a new social ethos of responsibility and care would need to precede, or whether it would flow from, institutional reform. What Howards End calls ‘preparedness’—i.e. the attempt to protect the most vulnerable members of society against the risk of unemployment—is central to the generic instabilities of Forster’s novel. These instabilities are further heightened in Forster’s novel fragment Arctic Summer, which fails in championing the excitements of ‘romance’ over the perceived boredom of a life guarded against risk. We need to read with rather than against the grain of these texts by taking seriously both their progressive aspirations and their reparative attention to subject positions that are excluded from the period’s projects of reform. |
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