Record Number: 21099

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

Passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940) include remarks on value of cultural works for successive generations of civilised people from Lord Acton's Lecture on the Study of History ('A speech of Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates [...] come nearer to our lives than the ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian acorns'). Forster responds with comment that 'Lord Acton is right, but [...] He forgot that that most people do not respond to culture or intellectual honesty [...] he appears to this generation as an old man lecturung in a cap and gown,' having also noted 'This afternoon (29-2-40) I was at Bishops Cross, where new born lambs were dying in the cold, and Hughie Waterson, a Nazi by temperament, was trying to save them [...] Him the ancestral wisdom inspired.'

Century:

1800-1849, 1900-1945

Date:

29 Feb 1940

Country:

n/a

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Edward Morgan Forster

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1 Jan 1879

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

n/a

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Lord Acton

Title:

A Lecture on the Study of History

Genre:

Essays / Criticism, History

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

First published 1895, when also given as lecture at Cambridge

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

21099

Source:

Print

Author:

E. M. Forster

Editor:

Philip Gardner

Title:

Commonplace Book

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1985

Vol:

n/a

Page:

117-118

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

E. M. Forster, Philip Gardner (ed.), Commonplace Book (London, 1985), p. 117-118, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=21099, accessed: 16 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

None