Ford MadoxFord.
LiteraryNetworks and Cultural Transformations.
GASIOREK,Andrzej and Daniel MOORE (Eds.)
Rodopi
Series: InternationalFord Madox Ford Studies 7
Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2008, 285 pp.
Pb:978-90-420-2437-3
Présentation de l'éditeur
Thecontroversial British writer Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) is increasinglyrecognized as a major presence in early twentieth-century literature. Thisseries of International Ford Madox Ford Studies was founded to reflect therecent resurgence of interest in him. Each volume is based upon a particulartheme or issue; and relates aspects of Ford's work, life, and contacts, to broaderconcerns of his time. The present book is part of a large-scale reassessment ofhis roles in literary history.
Ford isbest-known for his fiction, especially TheGood Soldier, long considered a modernist masterpiece; and Parade's End,which Anthony Burgess described as ‘the finest novel about the First WorldWar'; and Samuel Hynes has called ‘the greatest war novel ever written by anEnglishman'. In these, as in most of his books, Ford renders and analyses thecrucial transformations in modern society and culture. One of the most strikingfeatures of his career is his close involvement with so many of the majorinternational literary groupings of his time. In the South-East of England at the fin-de-siècle, hecollaborated for a decade with Joseph Conrad, and befriended Henry James and H.G. Wells. In Edwardian London he founded the English Review, publishing thesewriters alongside his new discoveries, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, and WyndhamLewis. After the war he moved to France, founding the transatlantic reviewin Paris, taking on Hemingway as asub-editor, discovering another generation of Modernists such as Jean Rhys andBasil Bunting, and publishing them alongside Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Besideshis role as contributor and enabler to various versions of Modernism, Ford wasalso one of its most entertaining chroniclers.
This volumeincludes twelve new essays on Ford's engagement with the literary networks andcultural shifts of his era, by leading experts and younger scholars of Ford andModernism. Two of the essays are by well-known creative writers: the novelistColm Tóibín, and the novelist and cultural commentator Zinovy Zinik.
Table
MaxSAUNDERS: General Editor's Preface
AndrzejGASIOREK and Daniel MOORE: Introduction: Transitions, Continuities, Networks,Nuclei
JohnATTRIDGE: ‘We Will Listen to None but Specialists': Ford, the Rise ofSpecialization, and the English Review
Rob HAWKES:Personalities of Paper: Characterisation in A Call and The Good Soldier
ColmTÓIBÍN: Outsiders in England and the Art of Being Found Out
AndrzejGASIOREK: ‘Content to be Superseded'?: Ford in the Great London Vortex
AlanMUNTON: The Insane Subject: Ford and Wyndham Lewis in the War and Post-War
DavidTROTTER: Ford Against Lewis and Joyce
MaxSAUNDERS: Ford and Impressionism
NickHUBBLE: The Origins of Intermodernism in Ford Madox Ford's Parallax View
IsabelleBRASME: Between Impressionism and Modernism: Some Do Not . . ., a poetics ofthe Entre-deux
AndrewFRAYN: ‘This Battle Was not Over': Parade's End as a Transitional Text in the Developmentof ‘Disenchanted' First World War Literature
ZinovyZINIK: Ford Madox Ford: Mentors, Disciples, and a Ring of Mail Conspirators
DavidJAMES: By Thrifty Design: Ford's Bequest and Coetzee's Homage
Contributors
Abstracts
Abbreviations