“离开科罗诺斯之路”中的联结主题 The Theme of Connection in The Road from Colonus开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

e. m foster plays an important role both in the british literature and the world literature in the 20^th century. his novels reflect the cross-cultural communication between people of a particular nation, ethnicity, social class, gender and sexual orientation through travelling stories. by doing these, he calls for people to improve “undeveloped heart” and look at difference reasonably in order to reach sincere connection. foster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel howards end: "only connect". his 1908 novel, a room with a view, is his most optimistic work, while a passage to india (1924) brought him his greatest success. he was nominated for the nobel prize in literature in 13 different years.

the road from colonus was created in foster’s early period, in which he explored the relationships between the young and the elderly to raise young people's awareness of respecting the elderly as well as paying more attention to have a better understanding of them. the novel provides critics with rich materials to dig and explore, such as symbolism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, etc. although the criticism has offered enough to help us understand his novels better, it is worth rereading his novels and paying more attention to foster's dominant theme of connection. connection is foster’s lifelong pursuits and dream. it refers to a true, complete understanding and loving in human relationship. due to experience the unconcerned of human relationship from industrial society, foster seeks help to “connection”. he wishes that through “connection” in different contents warmth, intelligence and soul could be infused into the alienated world. the central idea of foster’s novel is the “connection” theme, and for this reason i take the “connection” as a breakthrough point to tap into the unfamiliar area in the road from colonus.

the current research status of the theme of “connection” in howards end and a passage to india abroad and domestically is with sufficient information and the results are satisficing. by contrast, when it comes to the connection theme in the road form colonus, scholars rarely reach deeply into it. search on cnki, only 8 chinese journals are concerned with the road form colonus. from the perspective of intextuality, wang jing illustrated two main characters’ identity displacement and degradations by comparing it with sophocles’ oedipus at colonus through persona structure in ‘displacement and degradations of characters: comparative studies on’ the road from colonus and oedipus at colonus. from the perspective of humanism, tang xinzu uses the novel as case study to explore his unique humanism in brief analysis of humanism in the road from colonus. from the perspective of connection, lu qi and zeng yixuan in pursuit and failure of “connection”—an analysis of the imitation and adaptation of myths and archetypal images in the road from colonus spared no effort to explore lucas' effort for "connection" and final failure in the light of foster's imitation and adaptation of greek myth and archetypal images.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

This paper demonstrates the connection concept Foster revealed in The Road form Colonus. Through old Englishman Lucas’ travel path of his efforts for connection and the failure in the end, the author explores the connection between him and the history combined with the analysis of intertextuality with Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, probes into the connection between he and his daughter and several other friends mainly by the interpretation of the text, and examines the connection between he and himself, a way to evaluate the interior maturing progress with psychoanalytic criticism. On the ground of previous insight and overview, the purpose of this paper is to indicate the requirements for being a successful connector and in hope to invoke enlightenments in the modern society.

Four different techniques will be applied to do research: Document retrieval is used to collect and select relevant information on E.M Foster and the Road from Colonus, like CNKI, springer link, Ebsco, etc. Moreover, Literary Review will also be employed to analyze current research situation of this topic abroad and domestically. The third technique is text interpretation. Through extensive and intensive reading about the text, the author can grasp the details of the novel. Summarization and deduction are used to get a conclusion.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 20th january : settlement of the title

before20th march: submission of the outline

before 25th april : submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1] bloom, harold, ed. e. m. foster [m]. new york: chelsea house publisher, 1987

[2] foster, e. m., arbinger harvest [m]. middlesex, england: penguin books, 1936.

[3] foster, e. m. howards end [m]. america bantam books, 2001.