A Dance to the Music of Time

For the painting, see A Dance to the Music of Time (painting). For the British television series, see A Dance to the Music of Time (TV series).

A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12-volume roman-fleuve by English writer Anthony Powell, published between 1951 and 1975 to critical acclaim. The story is an often comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid-20th century. The books were inspired by the painting of the same name by French artist Nicolas Poussin.

The sequence is narrated by Nicholas Jenkins. At the beginning of the first volume, Jenkins falls into a reverie while watching snow descending on a coal brazier. This reminds him of "the ancient world—legionaries ... mountain altars ... centaurs ..." These classical projections introduce the account of his schooldays, which opens A Question of Upbringing.

Over the course of the following volumes, he recalls the people he met over the previous half a century and the events, often small, that reveal their characters. Jenkins's personality is unfolded slowly, and often elliptically, over the course of the novels.[1]

Bernard Stacey compiled a catalog and analysis of the poetic allusions in the novel.[2]

Time magazine included the novel in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[3] The editors of Modern Library ranked the work as 43rd-greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.[4] The BBC ranked the novel 36th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels.[5] In 2019 Christopher de Bellaigue wrote in The Nation that A Dance to the Music of Time is "perhaps the supreme London novel of the 20th century, an examination of the human behavior that defines the upper echelons of this brash, resilient, often pitiless place."[6] Volumes 7-9, "The War Trilogy," --The Valley of Bones, The Soldier's Art and The Military Philosophers—are the focus of Bernard Stacey's War Dance.[7]

  1. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (1998). "Powell's Way," New York Review (May 28, 1998).
  2. ^ Stacey, Bernard and Anthony Powell Society. Poetic Dance: A Catalogue and Analysis of the Poetic References Found in Anthony Powell's a Dance to the Music of Time. Anthony Powell Society 2018.
  3. ^ "All-Time 100 Novels". Time. 16 October 2005. Archived from the original on 13 March 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  4. ^ "The Modern Library, 100 Best, Novels". Randomhouse.com. Archived from the original on 7 February 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  5. ^ Ciabattari, Jane (7 December 2015). "The 100 greatest British novels". BBC. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
  6. ^ De Bellaigue, Christopher, "The Near-Miss Generation: Anthony Powell's England." The Nation (January 24, 2019).
  7. ^ Stacey, Bernard. War Dance : A Glossary of the Military Terms and References in the War Trilogy Novels in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time." Greenford: Anthony Powell Society; 2017.