Gay Novels of the Early 20th Century

E.M. Forster drafted Maurice during 1913–14, but he chose not to publish it during his lifetime because of its homosexual themes. He had good reason for concern. Sexual relationships between men remained criminal in Britain until 1967. Forster also thought Maurice would be considered scandalous because its main character finds love and happiness in a male-male relationship. If the story "ended unhappily, with a lad dangling from a noose or a with suicide pact," then the novel would have been acceptable, Forster writes in the novel's afterword called the Terminal Note.

In this same period, other writers in Europe published works with homosexual characters. French writer André Gide (1869–1951) wrote Corydon (1924), a Socratic dialogue in defense of homosexuality. Gide was also known for The Counterfeiters (1925), a novel about adolescent boys, some of them homosexual. But homosexuality was not criminal in France at the time, and, as Forster wryly notes, "Gide hasn't got a [living] mother!" French novelist Marcel Proust (1871–1922), a contemporary of Forster and Gide, was more cautious than Gide in his multivolume novel In Search of Lost Time (1913–27). Although the novel has homosexual characters, the narrator, Proust's stand-in, is not homosexual. Forster's observation that homosexual characters ended unhappily in novels is also borne out. German writer Klaus Mann (1906–49) brought his novel of adolescent homosexuality, The Pious Dance (1926), to a tragic ending. British author Radclyffe Hall's (1880–1943) lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928), is likewise unhappy and was also banned for a time in Britain. British writer Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) published the novel Orlando (1928), whose main character is immortal and shifts gender. This work escaped censorship and scandal, perhaps because its fanciful premise corresponded to nothing in English life at the time.

20世紀初的同誌小說

E.M.福斯特在1913-14年期間起草了《莫裡斯》，但由於其同誌主題，他選擇不在生前出版。他有充分的理由擔心。在英國，男人之間的性關係直到1967年仍然是犯罪。福斯特還認為《莫裡斯》會被認為是醜聞，因為它的主角在男男關係中找到了愛情和幸福。福斯特在小說的後記《終結者》中寫道，如果這個故事 "以一個小夥子被吊在絞索上或自殺協議的方式不愉快地結束"，那麼這部小說就可以接受。

在同一時期，歐洲的其他作家也發表了有同誌角色的作品。法國作家安德烈-紀德（1869-1951）寫了《科裡登》（1924），這是一部為同誌辯護的蘇格拉底對話。吉德還以《造假者》（1925年）而聞名，這是一部關於青春期男孩的小說，其中一些是同誌。但同誌在當時的法國並不是犯罪，而且，正如福斯特詼諧地指出的，"紀德沒有一個[活著的]母親！" 法國小說家馬塞爾-普魯斯特（Marcel Proust，1871-1922）是福斯特和紀德的同時代人，在他的多卷本小說《尋找失去的時光》（1913-27）中比紀德更謹慎。雖然小說中有同誌角色，但普魯斯特的替身--敘述者並不是同誌。福斯特關於小說中的同性戀角色結局不愉快的觀察也得到了證實。德國作家克勞斯-曼（1906-49）將他的青春期同性戀小說《虔誠的舞蹈》（1926）帶入了一個悲劇性的結局。英國作家拉德克利夫-霍爾（1880-1943）的女同小說《孤獨之井》（1928）同樣不快樂，在英國也曾一度被禁。英國作家弗吉尼亞-伍爾夫（1882-1941）出版了小說《奧蘭多》（1928），其主角是不死之身，並變換了性彆。這部作品躲過了審查和醜聞，也許是因為它那充滿幻想的前提與當時的英國生活毫無對應之處。

Homosexuality and the Law in Great Britain

In Maurice, university student Clive Durham declares his love for fellow student Maurice Hall, who rebuffs him. Later Clive thanks Maurice, saying, "Most men would have reported me to the Dean or the police." In reality, Clive's fear would have been well-founded. In the early 20th century when E.M. Forster was writing Maurice, homosexual relations were illegal in the United Kingdom.

Relationships between people of the same sex were not always illegal in Europe, however. Although such sexual acts were denounced by religious groups as immoral, no civil law forbade them. In Great Britain the situation began to change in the 16th century, with the passage of legislation criminalizing homosexual acts. During the reign of King Henry VIII (1491–1547; r. 1509–47), England's Buggery Act (1533) made sexual relations between men a capital crime. Lawmakers specified men; lesbian relations were so far beyond thinkable that lawmakers didn't bother to outlaw them. The death penalty for sodomy (intercourse with a person of the same sex) remained in place until 1861. In 1885 an amendment to the sodomy law created the crime of "gross indecency" for any kind of sexual relations between men, a more inclusive definition than sodomy or buggery (intercourse with a person of the same sex).

Forster grew up in this English legal and social climate. In 1895, when Forster was 16, Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), in an infamous trial, was sentenced to two years of hard labor in prison for "acts of gross indecency with other male persons." The sentence was hard on Wilde, and he died not long after his release from prison. It seems likely this trial made an impression on Forster, who later wrote that in his novels there was only one "subject that I can and may treat—the love of men for women and vice versa."

The year 1957, however, was a watershed in the acceptance of homosexuality in Great Britain. The Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution issued the Wolfenden Report, named for committee chair and British educator John Wolfenden (1906–85). The report recommended homosexuality be decriminalized in Britain, basing its recommendation on findings in social science and psychoanalysis. But nothing changed for another 10 years, when the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalized homosexual acts between men over age 21. Only four years later, Forster's Maurice was published, posthumously.

大不列顛的同性戀和法律