Abstract
The misfortunes of the clerk Leonard Bast in E. M. Forster's Howards End have frequently been read as a symptom of modernism's disdain for the lower-middle classes and their aspirations for cultural education. But Howards End is better seen as an extended meditation on the relationship of art and labour, and a criticism of the aesthetic education that Bast receives from the wealthy Schlegel sisters. Using Jacques Rancière's idea that aesthetic form and social power alike distribute speaking and non-speaking roles, the article discerns in the foreclosure of Bast's life and experiences an educational and aesthetic failure which Forster's bourgeois narrator is too keen to reproduce. By offering the possibility of resisting its own narrator, Howards End opens up another form of modernist pedagogy which does not create the pupil in the image of the teacher.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
