windy corner, summer street

One of the many things that utterly fascinate me about "A Room with a View" is how situations in the story lead to each other following the cycle of seasons. Can there be anything more Pagan than letting weather rule your life? Characters in this tale seem to do it most gracefully indeed. 

For example, it is in early SPRING that Lucy Honeychurch awakes to her own wants and needs, along with her discovery of Italian Renaissance.

However, E.M.Forster times the second section of the story in SUMMER -to be precise in August, in a most fortunate coincidence with Thomas Parnell's Pervigilium Veneris-, right when all human passions are harder to repress. Lucy's heart won't be easily won by George, though. She may live in Summer Street, but her mother's house is still called Windy Corner. 

As a symbol for unrequited love, the first cool AUTUMN winds will find Charlotte Bartlett and Lucy's mother failing to plant roses in the garden. Bad weather seems to herald Lucy's personal crisis as she tries to smother her wants and needs, the same ones she has only just found out about. Eventually, her break-up with dull Cecil Vyse will be made public on a grey September day -as it couldn't be otherwise. 

It is really wise of Forster's to save his readers -and his characters- WINTER, a time Lucy and George probably spend doing little else than arranging their wedding. This is only logical. The Greeks knew we can't see Persefone in winter because she is held by Hades in the Underworld, where they just eat one pomegranate after another while she waits for Flora to rule the fields again. Juicy, but not very exciting. Besides, it is a well-known fact that light-hearted comedies are normally incompatible with pouring rain. 

For a short time, sweet Lucy Honeychurch runs the risk of becoming Persefone, dead-alive Queen of the Underworld. Tim Burton spotted that quality about her wife and made the most of it in a number of movies long afterwards.

As a result, we only meet the happy couple back in SPRING, during a honeymoon in Florence that completes the full circle. 

Isn't this the most clever literary artefact known to man? I think it is. And so must have thought E.M.Forster when he stumbled on ancient Roman poet Virgil's works -more specifically, "Georgics"- where all this possibly comes from.

Come on, do you honestly believe authors come up with everything they write out of nothing? No way! Every writer is a reader first. The fruitful relationship between English Thinking and Mediterranean Art started long before Forster was born. Lucy Honeychurch's love pains weren't originated in 1908, but much earlier. Most likely they took off in Elizabethan England, when Shakespeare -the shore where all rivers meet the Sea- wrote his Italian plays. I am thinking of "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Tempest". But this is another story.