Ford Madox Ford and the Misfit Moderns: Edwardian Fiction and the First World War

by Norman Kulpa

Overview

Ford Madox Ford is a major modernist writer, yet many of his works do not conform to our assumptions about modernism. Examining ways in which he, alongside other 'misfit moderns', undermines 'stabilities' we expect from novels and memoirs, this book poses questions about the nature of narrative and the distinction between modernism and modernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230301535
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	09/18/2012
Edition description:	2012
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

ROB HAWKES teaches English at Leeds Trinity University College, UK.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction: Misfit Moderns Personalities of Paper: Character, Justification, and Narrative Space Casting Back: Plotting, Impressionism, and Temporality Fictionality at the Front: Genre, Trust, and the War Memoir Destruction/Reconstruction: Narrative, Shell Shock, and the War Novel Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"Ford's works are notoriously resistant to conventional notions of genre, oblivious to the canonical distinctions between realism and modernism, or materialism and fantasy, or fiction and autobiography. In this wide-ranging survey of the many ways in which Ford fails to 'fit' into the conventional categories of literary analysis, Rob Hawkes shows that the problem of how to appreciate Ford extends far beyond notions of genre to include fundamental elements of narrative itself." - Gene M. Moore, Ford Madox Ford Society newsletter 2013

"...Hawkes offers a valuable addition to Ford criticism and to modernist criticism in general by virtue of his strong emphasis on the narrative practices of misfit moderns and on those practices' destabilizing effects." - Wyatt Bonikowski, Suffolk University, in Modernism/modernity

"This book will be of use to those both studying and researching the period. It provides useful definitions of key terms, and, with well-chosen comparator texts, offers a new critical framework for reading Ford and his companion misfit moderns." - Dr Sara Haslam, The Open University, UK

From the Publisher