E.M. Forster’s Maurice, which was written in 1913 and 1914, was published only after Forster’s death in 1970 – almost sixty years later. Its long absence from the public domain renders it permanently anachronistic, since it was was never able to address directly its early twentieth century context. This paper considers how Maurice, in lamenting the oppression of homosexual men, offers a trenchant criticism of aspects of the ‘social fabric’ itself, including contemporary constructions of masculinity. Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library, published in 1988, is imbued with Forsterian echoes. Unlike Maurice, it was able to engage more openly with its social and political context; unlike the repressed Maurice Hall, its protagonist, Will Beckwith, enjoys what seems to be a sexually liberated lifestyle. However, Hollinghurst’s social criticism is if anything more stringent than Forster’s, for he shows that, despite the apparent sexual freedom enjoyed by gay men, there has been very little progress where the inclusion of these men in the ‘social fabric’ is concerned. This makes his novel darker and bleaker than Forster’s. Reading the two works together suggests that unpredictability and reversals may lie within ostensibly straightforward literary lineages.

中文翻译：

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莫里斯系列：福斯特、霍林赫斯特和“社会结构”

EM Forster 的 Maurice 写于 1913 年和 1914 年，仅在 Forster 于 1970 年去世后才出版——将近 60 年后。它在公共领域的长期缺席使其永远不合时宜，因为它从未能够直接解决其 20 世纪早期的背景。本文考虑了莫里斯如何在哀叹同性恋男性受到的压迫时，对“社会结构”本身的各个方面提出尖锐的批评，包括当代男性气质的建构。Alan Hollinghurst 于 1988 年出版的 The Swimming-Pool Library 充满了福斯特的回声。与莫里斯不同，它能够更公开地参与其社会和政治背景；与压抑的莫里斯·霍尔不同，它的主人公威尔·贝克威斯享受着一种似乎性解放的生活方式。然而，霍林赫斯特的社会批评比福斯特的更严厉，因为他表明，尽管男同性恋者明显享有性自由，但在将这些男人纳入“社会结构”的问题上，进展甚微。这使得他的小说比福斯特的小说更加黑暗和黯淡。将这两部作品一起阅读表明，不可预测性和逆转可能存在于表面上直截了当的文学谱系中。