Ten of the 14 short stories in E. M. Forster's posthumously published collection, The Life to Come, deal in one way or another with love between males. They vary widely in tone and setting, from the Ruritanian farce of "What Does It Matter?" to the grim realism of "The Other Boat," from the English domesticity of "Arthur Snatchfold" to the exotic locale of "The Life to Come." What binds all these stories together is the basic myth or fable which underlies them, and which seems to have recurred often to Forster's mind throughout the five or more decades of their creation. We wish here to explore that myth and some of its implications for Forster's view of life, as he saw it in the perspective of homosexuality, and to explore his attitudes toward the possibilities and qualities of homosexual relationships.

The myth may be simply described as that of...