Ford Madox Ford's Modernity explores the relation between modern writing and modern experience. It examines how his prose registers the impact on society and the arts of new technologies, such as railways and telephones. It demonstrates how Ford’s writing reflects, and elaborates, new conceptions of subjectivity, gender, nation and empire. And it establishes his contribution to the growing sense of crisis in the fields of history, epistemology, and representation. It includes essays by twenty leading Ford scholars on a wide range of his fiction and criticism, giving particular attention to The Good Soldier and to his responses to modern war.
As a hero of the modernist literary revolution, Ford Madox Ford is a fascinating figure of the early 20th century. Haslam explores continuity and crisis in artistic life during the early 20th century through a study of Ford's work and life.
The Good Soldier A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford At the fashionable German spa town Bad Nauheim, two wealthy, fin de siecle couples - one British, the other American - meet for their yearly assignation. As their story moves back and forth in time between 1902 and 1914, the fragile surface propriety of the pre - World War I society in which these four characters live is ruptured - revealing deceit, hatred, infidelity, and betrayal. "The Good Soldier" is Edward Ashburnham, who, as an adherent to the moral code of the English upper class, is nonetheless consumed by a passion for women younger than his wife - a stoic but fallible figure in what his American friend, John Dowell, calls "the saddest story I ever heard."
For the centenary of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier (1915), this volume originally re-examines some well-known issues surrounding the text and its “mad about writing” author: the Conrad-Ford friendship and literary collaboration; Modernist agenda(s) and Impressionist techniques; genre innovations and philosophical questions. The dialogue between established and young Ford scholars produces a challenging kaleidoscope of insights into the work of this controversial English writer and his perennial novel. Contributors are: Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Marc Ouellette, Lucie Boukalova, Allan Pero, Dean Bowers, Aimee L. Pozorski, Chris Forster, J. Fitzpatrick Smith, Edward Lobb, Timothy Sutton, Gabrielle Moyer, Joseph Wiesenfarth.
This monumental novel, divided into four separate books, celebrates the end of an era, the irrevocable destruction of the comfortable, predictable society that vanished during World War I.
The controversial British writer Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) is increasingly recognized as a major presence in early twentieth-century literature. This series of International Ford Madox Ford Studies was founded to reflect the recent resurgence of interest in him. Each volume is based upon a particular theme, issue, or work; and relates aspects of Ford’s writing, life, and contacts, to broader concerns of his time. Ford is best-known for his fiction, especially The Good Soldier, long considered a modernist masterpiece; and Parade’s End, which Anthony Burgess described as ‘the finest novel about the First World War’, Samuel Hynes has called ‘the greatest war novel ever written by an Englishman’, and which was adapted by Tom Stoppard for the acclaimed 2012 BBC/HBO television series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. The twelve essays in this volume, Ford Madox Ford’s Cosmopolis, focus directly on the internationalism so important to Ford, and bring out three main ideas. First, his lifelong commitment to an international vision of literature and culture. Second, ‘Cosmopolis’ also refers to Ford’s experiences of the particular cosmopolitan cities he lived in: London, Paris, New York. Third, the idea that his lifelong experience of Paris in particular informed and shaped his writing. Ford’s Cosmopolis is thus not only an ideal city or state open to such cosmopolitan exchange. It is also a mode of writing which invents forms and styles to render the experience of such hybridity, diversity, fluidity, and tolerance. Contributors are: Alexandra Becquet, Helen Chambers, Martina Ciceri, Laurence Davies, Claire Davison, Annalisa Federici, Georges Létissier, Caroline Patey, Andrea Rummel, Max Saunders, Rob Spence, Martin Stannard, George Wickes, Joseph Wiesenfarth.
This is the first full-length critical study of Parade's End to focus on the psychological effects of the war. Originally published in 4 volumes between 1924 and 1928, Parade's End has been described as 'the finest novel about the First World War' (Anthony Burgess), 'the greatest war novel ever written by an Englishman' (Samuel Hynes), 'a central Modernist novel of the 1920s, in which it is exemplary' (Malcolm Bradbury), and 'possibly the greatest 20th-century novel in English' (John N. Gray).These 10 newly commissioned essays focus on the psychological effects of the war, both upon Ford himself and upon his novel: its characters, its themes and its form. The chapters explore: Ford's pioneering analysis of war trauma, trauma theory, shell shock, memory and repression, insomnia, empathy, therapy, literary Impressionism and literary style. Writers discussed alongside Ford include Joseph Conrad, Siegfried Sassoon, May Sinclair, and Rebecca West, as well as theorists Deleuze and Guattari, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, William James, and W. H. R. Rivers.
Taking account of Ford Madox Ford’s entire literary output, this companion brings together prominent Ford specialists to offer an overview of existing Ford scholarship and to suggest new directions in Ford studies. The Routledge Research Companion to Ford Madox Ford is split into five parts, exploring the scholarly foundations of Ford Madox Ford studies, Ford's literary identity, Ford and place, specific case studies and themes and critical approaches. Within these five parts, the contributors cover areas relevant to Ford’s fiction, nonfiction and poetry, including reception history, life-writing, literary histories, gender and comedy. The Routledge Research Companion to Ford Madox Ford is an invaluable resource for students and scholars in Ford Studies, in modernism, and in the literary world that Ford helped shape in the early years of the twentieth century.
Preliminary Material -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE /Max Saunders -- INTRODUCTION /Laura Colombino -- FROM PAINT TO PRINT - GRANDFATHER'S LEGACY /Angela Thirlwell -- FORD MADOX FORD'S ART CRITICISM AS A RESERVOIR FOR HIS NARRATIVE POETICS /Vita Fortunati -- FROM PRE-RAPHAELISM TO IMPRESSIONISM /Max Saunders -- IMAGE-MUSIC-TEXT: FORD AND THE IMPRESSIONIST LYRIC /Ashley Chantler -- TO COOK, OR TO PAINT, IN PARIS?: FORD IN COLOUR /Sara Haslam -- VISUALITY VS. TEMPORALITY: PLOTTING AND DEPICTION IN THE FIFTH QUEEN AND LADIES WHOSE BRIGHT EYES /Rob Hawkes -- THE PORTRAIT: FORD'S CHEF-D'ɶUVRE INCONNU /Gene M. Moore -- FORD MADOX FORD'S LITERARY PORTRAITS /Anna Viola Sborgi -- FORDING HOLBEIN /Martin Stannard -- SKULL/BRAIN DRAIN STAIN (THE AMBASSADORS) /guy mannes-abbott -- 'IF WE SHADOWS HAVE OFFENDED': THE METAPHOR OF SHADOW IN THE MARSDEN CASE /Jenny Plastow -- A MAP OF TORY MISREADING IN PARADE'S END /Mark Conroy -- MODERNITY, SHOCK AND CINEMA: THE VISUAL AESTHETICS OF FORD MADOX FORD'S PARADE'S END /Alexandra Becquet -- FORD, BOWEN, AND ITALIAN ART /Joseph Wiesenfarth -- FORD + BIALA: A LONG AND PASSIONATE DIALOGUE /Jason Andrew -- FORD, MATISSE AND THE BOOK OF THE DEAD: THE (IN)VISIBLE OBJECTS OF THE RASH ACT AND HENRY FOR HUGH /Laura Colombino -- CONTRIBUTORS -- ABSTRACTS -- ABBREVIATIONS.
Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant, unconventional mathematician, is married to the dazzling yet unfaithful Sylvia, when, during a turbulent weekend, he meets a young Suffragette by the name of Valentine Wannop. Christopher and Valentine are on the verge of becoming lovers until he must return to his World War I regiment. Ultimately, Christopher, shell-shocked and suffering from amnesia, is sent back to London. An unforgettable exploration of the tensions of a society confronting catastrophe, sexuality, power, madness, and violence, this narrative examines time and a critical moment in history.
