March of Literature: From Confucius' Day to Our Own

by Ford Madox Ford, Alexander Theroux (Introduction)

Written for general readers rather than scholars and first published in 1938, The March of Literature is a working novelist's view of what is valuable in literature, and why. Convinced that scholars and teachers give a false sense of literature, Ford brings alive the pleasures of reading by writing about books he is passionate about.Beginning at the beginning with ancient Egyptian and Chinese literature and the Bible Ford works his way through classical literature, the writings of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, continuing up to the major writers of his own day like Ezra Pound, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad. With his encyclopedic reading and expertise in the techniques of writing, Ford is a reliable and entertaining guide. Ford also includes a chapter on publishers and booksellers, noting the key roles they play in literature's existence.Novelist Alexander Theroux (Darconville's Cat, Laura Warholic) has written an insightful introduction for this reissue, the first time this monumental book has been made available in paperback.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, Literary Criticism, Books About Books, British Literature

878 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1938

About the author

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

The March of Literature has two fatal, as one calls them, flaws. One, that it was published in 1938. The second, that it was authored by Ford Madox Ford. About the first we really ought not wring our hands too much. It is the fate of most published works to fade into out-datedness. As to the second, it is what one might call a “constitutive flaw,” that characteristic which simultaneously shortens the work’s value and makes it the very work which it is and without which we would have something not at all like what we have. Which is to say, every history of our literature will be stamped by the voice which writes its history. Should you love Ford Madox Ford and his 81 books and over 400 articles, by all means read this. If you don’t give a flyin’ wwhhoo about Ford, as is the case with your present reviewer, what will be in store for you is an unreliable narrator pressing you with a whole bucketful of idiosyncratic judgements about our literature. Or, you’ll find someone with whom you’ll enjoy clashing over every second literary judgment and historical or biographical relevancy or irrelevancy. It’s amateurs’ night out with no apologies.

And then there’s those reflexive contradictions which we always glee so much over. z.B., we have the Ford prior-judgment system: turn to page 90 of any given work, read the first full paragraph, judge the prose, “The letters of course expressed, not thoughts like the Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Chinese idiographs, but simply sounds, the ‘t’ representing the sound....” Help yourself to that one. Or, there’s that thing for which he so ardently condemned Fielding’s Tom Jones. I mean his digressions. Having experienced Ford’s plentiful digressions shall we conclude that it is not the presence or absence of digressions which constitutes the value of a given novel, but rather how well those digressions are pulled off? This digressive tendency on Ford’s part was reason enough to hire Theroux for the introduction, but just that Theroux’s digressions are simply superior to Ford’s. And what is a digression but a story within a story, or a thought within a thought?

So, but, much as this is an engagable volume against which one would like to make a detailed point by point rejoinder, one doesn’t want to bother. I borrow a few characterizing words from Theroux’s introduction:

But this is not history--Ford, while trying to be reasonable, is not running for mayor--he can be not only unpredictable in his tastes, but positively maddening. He devotes six pages to the Roman poet Tibullus and then doesn’t mention Melville. He takes three pages to sing the praises of the “great” Jean Paul Richter, of whom he ludicrously writes “a man is hardly a complete man until he has read a great deal of Jean Paul,” and proceeds to dismiss James Joyce in a few lines as a word-juggler, the content of whose books “is of relatively little importance.” He vilifies Tasso, pronounced Dryden’s dramas to be worse than awful, rejects Ibsen’s plays as “almost unreadable,” and unequivocally denounces Victor Hugo for being a snob who wanted Paris to be named after himself.

Why did Dalkey Archive reissue this volume? Perhaps because like all readers, John O’Brien likes books with a voice, with idiosyncrasies , with maddenings. Imagine!

One wants a comprehensive view of our literary histories and traditions. But I can’t imagine it being this one. Better would be to cobble together slightly more specialized overviews of shorter eras and literary movements or more closely grouped national literatures. A bevy of Norton Anthologies, for example, would be of greater value than Ford’s entirely idiosyncratic and, frankly bizarre, preferences.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a student of English Literature, I have read several outlines and histories of literature in general. Truth be told, while they all contain important information, they are usually dull. Not this one, which I picked up solely because I liked Ford's fiction. Ford's tone is chatty, gossiply; it's like he is sitting across from you at a bar and talking to you, telling you these wonderful stories about people.. Ford really believes in the writer/reader relationship that he describes in the book. If you have never read a history of literature before, read this one.

[Maijabeep]

Oh no

[Doc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for any lover of literature. Ford was "an old man mad about writing" and here he presents an incredibly broad perspective for the development of literature across the centuries and through diverse cultures.

[Sasha]

'Sup 2016

[Elinor]

Ford's brilliant & idiosyncratic survey of everything ever written