‘Spots of Time’ in a Passage to India

Abstract

In this research paper I shall argue that the pattern of growth in A Passage to India is Wordsworthian. Wordsworth’s theory of personal growth is explained by his concept of ‘spots of time’. The most English kind of literary identification – with Wordsworth and Romanticism – enables Forster to reach out to attempt to comprehend the non-English and the non-Western. In A Passage to India, Mrs Moore endorses the Wordsworthian view of Nature by making Grasmere a standard of essential English identity. Forster blends the Wordsworthian notion of ‘spots of time’ with the spiritual side of Hinduism. This side of Hinduism Forster sees embodied in the moment of the birth of Krishna.