She described Forster as having greater gradations in his treatment of morality. He is “sympatico” she said.

Unlike Austen, Forster delved into the complexity of the “human muddle” Smith said.

“Forster’s characters cleave unto the world, body and soul,” she said.

Smith linked the emotional effect of novels with their moral stance.

“When we read with fine attention, we find ourselves caring about people who are various and not quite like us. And this is good,” she said.

Smith was introduced by Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language Homi K. Bhabha, who is chair of the history and literature committee.

“Zadie Smith follows Forster’s passion to connect,” Bhabha said. “She reads between crossed lines and plurality and emerges in the midst of human muddle.”

“Zadie is so much of a presence,” said Dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study Drew Gilpin Faust. “She has this wonderful ironic sense of the world, but an ironic sense steeped in a deep moral commitment.”

Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, was the winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award.

The talk concluded the Radcliffe Institute’s Dean’s Lecture Series for the year.

—Staff writer Ella A. Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@fas.harvard.edu.