Charles Henri Ford

265 Pages·2017·3.602 MB·English

by  Feldman, Matthew;Howard, Alexander;Tonning, Erik

Charles Henri Ford
Historicizing Modernism
Series Editors
Matthew Feldman, Professor of Contemporary History, Teesside University, UK
Erik Tonning, Professor of British Literature and Culture, University of Bergen, Norway
Assistant Editor: David Tucker, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chester, UK
Editorial Board
Professor Chris Ackerley, Department of English, University of Otago, New Zealand;
Professor Ron Bush, St. John’s College, University of Oxford, UK; Dr Finn Fordham,
Department of English, Royal Holloway, UK; Professor Steven Matthews, Department of
English, University of Reading, UK; Dr Mark Nixon, Department of English, University
of Reading, UK; Professor Shane Weller, Reader in Comparative Literature, University of
Kent, UK; and Professor Janet Wilson, University of Northampton, UK.
Historicizing Modernism challenges traditional literary interpretations by taking an
empirical approach to modernist writing: a direct response to new documentary sources
made available over the last decade.
Informed by archival research, and working beyond the usual European/American avant-
garde 1900-45 parameters, this series reassesses established readings of modernist writers
by developing fresh views of intellectual contexts and working methods.
Series Titles
Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India, Laetitia Zecchini
British Literature and Classical Music, David Deutsch
Broadcasting in the Modernist Era, Matthew Feldman, Henry Mead and Erik Tonning
Ezra Pound’s Adams Cantos, David Ten Eyck
Ezra Pound’s Eriugena, Mark Byron
Great War Modernisms and The New Age Magazine, Paul Jackson
James Joyce and Catholicism, Chrissie Van Mierlo
John Kasper and Ezra Pound, Alec Marsh
Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism, edited by Janet Wilson,
Gerri Kimber and Susan Reid
Late Modernism and The English Intelligencer, Alex Latter
The Life and Work of Thomas MacGreevy, Susan Schreibman
Literary Impressionism, Rebecca Bowler
Modern Manuscripts, Dirk Van Hulle
Modernism at the Microphone, Melissa Dinsman
Reading Mina Loy’s Autobiographies, Sandeep Parmar
Reframing Yeats, Charles Ivan Armstrong
Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx, David Tucker
Samuel Beckett and Cinema, Anthony Paraskeva
Samuel Beckett and The Bible, Iain Bailey
Samuel Beckett’s ‘More Pricks Than Kicks’, John Pilling
Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936-1937, Mark Nixon
T. E. Hulme and the Ideological Politics of Early Modernism, Henry Mead
Virginia Woolf’s Late Cultural Criticism, Alice Wood
Charles Henri Ford
Between Modernism and Postmodernism
Alexander Howard
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA
www.bloomsbury.com
BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2017
© Alexander Howard, 2017
Alexander Howard has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action
as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-7857-7
ePDF: 978-1-4742-7859-1
ePub: 978-1-4742-7858-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Howard, Alexander, 1983- author.
Title: Charles Henri Ford: between modernism and postmodernism/Alexander Howard.
Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. |
Series: Historicizing modernism; 4 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016046734| ISBN 9781474278577 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781474278584 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Ford, Charles Henri–Criticism and interpretation. |
Modernism (Literature)–United States. | BISAC: LITERARY CRITICISM/
American/General. | LITERARY CRITICISM/Poetry. | LITERARY CRITICISM/
Gay & Lesbian.
Classification: LCC PS3511.O392 Z66 2017 | DDC 811/.52–dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046734
Series: Historicizing Modernism
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts,
author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Water From a Bucket, or, the Hidden Modernist
History of Charles Henri Ford 1
1 Blues and the Belated Renovation of Modernism 15
2 Community, Circularity, Sociability, Postcards 65
3 Building Up and Breaking Down: Surrealism, New York,
New Criticism 101
4 Spare Parts, or, Caught Between Pop and a Historical Hard Place 145
5 Multitudes, Mirrors, Crystals, Haiku, Home 189
Conclusion: I Will Be What I Am, or, the Camp Modernist
Legacy of Charles Henri Ford 221
Bibliography 227
Index 243
Preface
This book series is devoted to the analysis of late-nineteenth to twentieth-
century literary modernism within its historical context. Historicizing Modern-
ism thus stresses empirical accuracy and the value of primary sources (such as
letters, diaries, notes, drafts, marginalia or other archival deposits) in developing
monographs, scholarly editions, and edited collections on modernist authors
and their texts. This may take a number of forms, such as manuscript study and
annotated volumes; archival editions and genetic criticism; as well as mappings
of interrelated historical milieus or ideas. To date, no book series has laid claim
to this interdisciplinary, source-based territory for modern literature. Corre-
spondingly, one burgeoning sub-discipline of modernism, Beckett Studies, fea-
tures heavily here as a metonymy for the opportunities presented by manuscript
research more widely. While an additional range of ‘canonical’ authors will be
covered here, this series also highlights the centrality of supposedly ‘minor’ or
occluded figures, not least in helping to establish broader intellectual genealogies
of modernist writing. Furthermore, while the series will be weighted towards the
English-speaking world, studies of non-Anglophone modernists whose writings
are ripe for archivally based exploration shall also be included here.
A key aim of such historicizing is to reach beyond the familiar rhetoric of
intellectual and artistic ‘autonomy’ employed by many modernists and their
critical commentators. Such rhetorical moves can and should themselves be
historically situated and reintegrated into the complex continuum of individual
literary practices. This emphasis upon the contested self-definitions of modernist
writers, thinkers, and critics may, in turn, prompt various reconsiderations of
the boundaries delimiting the concept ‘modernism’ itself. Similarly, the very
notion of ‘historicizing’ modernism remains debatable, and this series by no
means discourages more theoretically informed approaches. On the contrary,
the editors believe that the historical specificity encouraged by Historicizing
Modernism may inspire a range of fundamental critiques along the way.
Matthew Feldman
Erik Tonning
Acknowledgements
To list all of my debts would take too long a time. But one needs to start
somewhere. Since completing my doctoral research, which benefited from
a generous Arts and Humanities Research Council grant, I have been the
appreciative recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship in
the Humanities. This fellowship facilitated the research trip I undertook in the
summer of 2014 to the matchless Harry Ransom Centre in the Humanities at
the University of Texas, Austin. This book draws on a wide range of archival
materials contained at the HRC. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude
to the HRC’s extraordinary staff, whose depth of expertise and warmth of
spirit made my time in Texas so rich and enjoyable. On a related archival note,
the present book also makes critical use of a number of materials held at the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale Library. I wish also to
extend my thanks to the staff at this vital research institution. Thanks need
also go to the staff at the New York Public Library’s Archives and Manuscripts
division.
I have been fortunate to work with a number of exceptional scholars and
outstanding human beings at a variety of universities over the years. While
any mistakes or errors contained within the present book belong to me alone,
all of the following people have played important parts in the shaping of the
work now in front of you. I would like first to thank the faculty and staff of the
incomparable Centre for Modernism Studies in Australia and the School of
Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales. I would like above all to
thank Helen Groth, George Kouvaros, Julian Murphet, Sean Pryor, and Mark
Steven. These fine people have offered invaluable advice, encouragement, and
support over the past few years. Exceptionally warm thanks need also go to the
faculty and staff of the School of Literature, Art, and Media at the University
of Sydney – especially Mark Byron and Sarah Gleeson-White. The vibrant and
lively research culture at Sydney has ensured that the time I have spent as a
visiting research fellow in School of Literature, Art, and Media has been both
intellectually enlightening and invigorating. To this list, I want now to add the
viii Acknowledgements
names of Peter Boxall, Marsha Bryant, Gregory Dobbins, Ben Etherington,
Matthew Feldman, Fiona Green, James Harding, Doug Haynes, Daniel Kane,
Angelos Koutsourakis, Douglas Mao, Peter Nicholls, Joanna Pawlik, Allan
Pero, Erik Tonning, and Eric White. In addition, I would like to take the
opportunity to thank the editors of Modernism/modernity, Journal of Modern
Periodical Studies, and The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist
Magazines for affording me the opportunity to publish early versions of some
portions of the chapters that appear in the present book. I would also like to
thank Michael Andre, Gerard Malanga, and Lynne Tillman for kindly sharing
their recollections of Charles Henri Ford with me, and to Indra B. Tamang for
his incredible hospitality and for granting me permission to quote from Ford’s
published work. Finally, I would like to thank my family. None of this would
have been possible without them. Claire Howard’s support has, in particular,
been crucial. This book is dedicated to Audrey and Brian Howard and is for
Meredith Okell, if she wants it.
Introduction: Water From a Bucket,
or, the Hidden Modernist History
of Charles Henri Ford
1
Modernism, as is well known, is a notoriously difficult term to define. Sean
Latham and Gayle Rogers acknowledge this in their recent contribution to
the scholarly field. This particular issue, in their shared estimation, ‘has now
beset, driven, and often befuddled generations of students and scholars alike’.1
And why might this be so? The answer they provide has to do with the rather
paradoxical fact that ‘there is no such thing as modernism – no singular
definition capable of bringing order to the diverse multitude of creators,
manifestos, practices, and politics that have been variously constellated around
this enigmatic term’.2 The concept as traditionally understood is also strangely
detached, as Latham and Rogers point out, ‘from political history (unlike
the crisply defined Victorian era) and even from the Western calendar itself,
leaving it unmoored from something as vague as twentieth-century studies’.3
Given over as some culturally prominent early twentieth-century figures were
to making portentous and unsubstantiated claims about the changeable nature
of human character, the writers, theorists, and artists we tend to think of as
modernists have hardly helped in this regard – that is, when they aren’t flat
out denying having anything to do with this and other such related matters in
the first place.4 Truth be told, the few writers on the ground who did deign to
broach the topic of what modernism might in fact, for want of a better word,
look like weren’t all necessarily that much help either.5 And yet we continue,
in spite of everything, to try and get a critical handle on this most nebulous of
notions, even as it continues to recede from our view. If we were to adapt the
delightfully pithy axiom of an older and wiser writer, perhaps we might pen