Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (GALA) – the University of Greenwich open access repository http://gala.gre.ac.uk __________________________________________________________________________________________ Citation: Brown, G. M. (1983) G.K.Chesterton: an argument for his status as a serious creative writer in the mainstream of English Romanticism, with a discussion of his possible influence on the novelist and poet Charles Williams. MPhil thesis, Thames Polytechnic. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Please note that the full text version provided on GALA is the final published version awarded by the university. “I certify that this work has not been accepted in substance for any degree, and is not concurrently being submitted for any degree other than that of (name of research degree) being studied at the University of Greenwich. I also declare that this work is the result of my own investigations except where otherwise identified by references and that I have not plagiarised the work of others”. Brown, G. M. (1983) G.K.Chesterton: an argument for his status as a serious creative writer in the mainstream of English Romanticism, with a discussion of his possible influence on the novelist and poet Charles Williams. ##thesis _type## , ##institution## Available at: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/6509/ __________________________________________________________________________________________ Contact: [email protected] 2S- Chester ton: an argument for his status as a serious creative writer in the mainstream of English. Romanticism, with a discussion of his possible influence on the novelist and poet Charles Williams. Brown. Submitted to the Council for National Academic Awards for the degree of Master of Philosophy, under the sponsorship of the Thames Polytechnic. May 1983, Gr.K.Chester ton: an argument for his status as a serious creative writer in the mainstream of English Romanticism,with a discussion of his possible influence on the novelist and poet Charles Williams. by G.M. Brown. There are two concurrent arguments: firstly, that the Edwardians found in Chesterton the same kind of liberating imaginative experience that earlier readers found in the first Romantics (1790-18.50); secondly, that, contrary to recent opinion, he was an artist of some depth. The first chapter describes this case against Chesterton and the real problems to which a critic must address himself. Chapter 2 identifies his position among the different post-Romantic movements in Victorian society. Chapter 3 shows his special debt to William Morris's ideas; but also illustrates that the best of Chesterton's historical writing is fresh and not derivative. The next four chapters deal with Chesterton's original achievement; in which, paradoxically, he is also most recognisably Romantic in his imagination and in his sensibility. Chapter 4 describes how his strange imagination developed from childhood to adulthood and ultimately shaped his whole career. The darker side of this imagination, his awareness of supernatural evil, is the subject of Chapter 5» Chapter 6 shows the newspaper journalist bringing all kinds of strong and tender feelings to bear on public life, and compares him to Hazlitt and his contemporaries. Chapter 7 shows how this imagination and sensibility combined to produce perceptive literary criticism. Chapter 8 argues that the novels of Chrles Williams show widespread signs of Chesterton's influence, and that this illustrates his power to permeate a younger mind. Finally Chapter 9 sums up: Chesterton is like pre-Victorian Romantic writers in his passion, his idealism, and in the imagination which perceives a miraculous universe behind the physical world. He expresses this view with the sensitivity and subtlety of the artist. Finally a rationale of Chesterton's apparent frivolity, based on his own metaphysics, is proposed as necessary to a just evaluation of his work* 1. Contents. Chapter 1 The Critical Problem p.2 2 An Edwardian Romantic 10 3 'The Legend of an Epic Hour,' Chesterton's Historical and Political Writing 32 4 'Unearthly Daylight 1 : Chesterton's Imagination 47 5 The Haunted Imagination 65 6 'Openly and Indecently Humane': Che ste rton * s Sensibility. 77 7 'The Middleman in Poetry': Chesterton's criticism. 93 8 Chesterton and Charles Williams 107 9 The Problem Re-examined 124 Bibliography: note 132 Footnotes: 1 P-137 2 p.140 3 P.149 Appendix A: Chesterton/Coulton correspondence 155 4 p-158 5. P-163 6. p.165 Appendix B: 'Romantic' Journalism of the Early 19C. 172 Appendix C: Chesterton and the Great War. 173 7- P-176 Appendix D: 'Romantic 1 Critics of the 19C. 184 8. p.187 9. p.196. Chapter Une. The Critical Pro diem. "Even poor old Chesterton must think; he can't have actually left off thinking altogether; there must be some form of cerebral function going forward to fill the empty hours of his misdirected and wasted life..." * (Chesterton in 1928, voicing current estimates of himself.) from 1901 to 1936> Gilbert Jieith Chesterton was one of the most popular of English writers* He was also one of the most prolific of any period; and ironically, both these characteristics contributed to the fact that nearly all serious critics virtually ignored him for years before his death and have done so ever since* (l) The joking words quoted above are actually a shrewd assessment of the critics' attitudes to him* (2) He was too jolly, too simple, to be considered in the same class as, say, Shaw, Conrad or iorster: all near contemporaries. (3) So the legend went* Serious reviews of tv/entieth-century literature often omit him altogether. (4) Processor Bernard Bergonzi expressed a typical view when he described Chesterton and .be Hoc as tne statues of fallen gods who deserve a long respectful stare before their features are finally eroded* (5) Yet, curiously, though critics neglect him, his name haunts our consciousness in the 'eighties* Middle-aged media people mine for 'bon mots' to sparkle in their own articles; journalists like Katharine Whitehorn and Clive James, public persons like Cardinal Hurne and ex-police chief Sir Robert Mark are recent examples* Bernard Levin refers to his ideas as well as to his witticisms* The Queen quoted him in her 198! Christmas Day broadcast* The modern choral work, 'The White Horse* by David Bedford is based on verses from Chesterton's poem* Father Brown had a T.V. apotheosis in Kenneth More* There were a spattering of selections, biographies and critical studies in the 'seventies* (6) Yet among younger people, Chesterton is not even known as tne fat man who gave up his seat in the 'bus for three ladies; even the myth has faded. Perhaps this is as well; now we can judge him more accurately as a writer, but it does give tae problem urgency; ne is in danger of slipping off the xibrary map completely in the next decade. Where, then, does he belong in literature? The range of his worjc makes him difficult to place; he wrote over thirty full-length books, and probably over a thousand articles and short stories, most but not all of which are collected into volume form. These writings include novels, verse, biographies, religious history, Cnristian apologetics, detective stories, politics, travel, three plays, much literary criticism, broadcast talks and an autobiography. Nobody has made up their minds about him; and certainly during his lifetime the critics differed vigorously about him» (7) In his first decade - that is, between 1901 and 1911 - the consensus of opinion was tnat he was brilliant, for instance, in 1903 his Bobert browning won praise from Alfred Noyes in The Speaker which summed up what readers felt about Chesterton at his best:'There are moments when one feels, with a sort of dazed terror, that his obscurity, his restraint, his negations, and .uis refusal to define or limit his conception of that behind the veil are only sure and perfect ways of asserting and making us feel its presence. 1 (8) But the critics early became exasperated* They did not understand the novels - The Observer hazarded a guess that Sunday in The Man Who Was Thursday might be 'the British aabbath 1 . (9) More seriously,they found his reasoning arbitrary, his method forced, the paradoxes obtrusive* JF.W.ilias in The Bookman said: 'Vie are looking at a troupe of performing truths'. But the volume of notices testified to the impact of this new young writer. Clement Shorter in The Sphere in 1904 announced that Chesterton had 'hypnotised 1 both critics and public, but that he nimself had neither liked nor understood what he had read* A11 the biographical accounts describe Chesterton's I extraordinary bounce to fame between 1901-1903, and the remarkable general interest in him. The Bookman wittily and accurately transposed Chesterton*s own epigram on Dickens to 'a length cut from the flowing and mixed substance called Mr, Chesterton r . (October 1906) The same review calls him 'one of the profoundest of living mystics*, and his passion and sincerity were also acknowledged, widely. Evidently reading Chesterton was a vivid experience for everybody, whether they approved or not. 'His sins were scarlet but his books were read* applied to him as well as to hilaire felloe* They certainly sold in rapid editionso (10) As the years went by, however, the criticisms accumulated* The Evening Standard foreshadowed future jibes when it likened Chesterton f s readers to those who 'laugh at his brilliance, and assume the attitude of an indulgent crowd at a circus. 1 (ll) After the first World War, the number of notices dwindled, although he was not publishing appreciably less; but in spite of his continued popularity with the public he was no longer an important writer for the critics* He had also labelled himself 'itoman Catholic* by his much publicised conversion in 1922, and thereby limited his appeal.