“If I Had to Choose” – E. M. Forster and the Idea of Friendship

E. M. Forster famously wrote in his 1938 essay „What I Believe” „if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country”. This striking statement captures the attitude with which Forster approached friendship. The paper aims at reconstructing the role of friendship in the writer’s biography as well as his works. It will further present various functions of friendship in Forsterian fiction – such as the ability of friendship to break through social and national barriers - from Forster’s first short story “The Story of a Panic” to his last novel "A Passage to India".