Distant Desire: Homoerotic Codes and the Subversion of the English Novel in E.M. Forster’s Fiction

Distant Desire focuses on the homoerotic desire coded in all of Forster’s novels and illustrates how Forster’s aesthetics have been formed by the homoerotic tradition of English Literature. The theme of male friendship occurs in every novel and is connected with the theme of journey. The ideal of male love is conceived as a distant desire. The underlying theme of male friendship in Forster’s narratives constantly subverts the conventional, heterosexual plot of the novels. This work combines an interpretation of homoerotic themes with the cultural theories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Classicism and Orientalism.