E.M. Forster’s Queer Re-Orientations: “Dr Woolacott” and “The Classical Annex”

Abstract

E. M. Forster’s short story collection The Life to Come and Other Stories (1972) features a set of intensely homoerotic stories. In this article, I re-address two of them: “Dr Woolacott” (1927) and “The Classical Annex” (1930) through the lens of Sara Ahmed’s theory of Orientation. I shall argue that Forster’s erotic short stories offer their potential readers the possibility to re- orientate themselves towards the representations of queerness and towards Forster himself. They manage to do this by presenting readers with depictions of queer realities that are often ignored or misinterpreted in a direct way, and by subverting the traditional discourses of pathology and aestheticism. I argue, as well, the criticism of these stories needs to be reviewed so that they may attract the critical attention they deserve among Forster’s creations.