Write a note on G. K. Chesterton as an essayist.

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Introduction

G. K. Chesterton is regarded the best writer of the 20th century. He said something about everything and he said it better than anybody else. But he was not mere words smith. He was very good at expressing himself, but more importantly, he had something very good to express. He was not only the greatest writer of the 20th century but also he was the greatest thinker of the 20th century. He was a critic, a novelist and a poet of rank, but he was also an essayist of repute. He used to write in the columns of Daily News upon all manner of books and upon nearly every subject under the sun. He used to sit and write his articles and essays in Fleet Street Cafe.

The Use of Satire, Wit and Paradox

Chesterton caught the infection of satire and epigram during the nineties, but he used these weapons for the defence of constructive principles, old faiths and venerable institutions especially the Catholic Church, and for laughing down the sleeping pretensions of science and modern thought. His chief weapons are wit and paradox. His strength as a writer lies in the clear and witty way in which he expresses common place truths. To those out of contact with the fundamental beliefs which inspired his joyous argumentativeness, he might appear a buffoon intoxicated by his own flow of wit and paradox.

A Wide Range of His Essays and Columns

Chesterton was an essayist who wrote a regular column for much of his life. Many of his books are collections of his essays and columns, covering a wide range of subjects, so that the collections titles are like: All Things Considered, All is Grist, Generally Speaking, and so on. Chesterton first came to public notice with his critical essays-both social and literary. His collection of essays entitled What’s Wrong With the World (1910) brought him attention alongwith Hilaire Belloc, as a leading advocate for Distributism. Chesterton is perhaps most popularly known as the author of the father Brown detective series. which he wrote from the early 1900s into the 1930s. The stories were collected in The Innocence of Father (1911), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1927), and The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). Chesterton spent a month of 1927 in Poland, a nation whose true place Europe he held high. Two years later his visit to Rome resulted in The Resurrection of Rome (1930). His more successful books of this period were his Catholic essays. The Thing (1929), and two volumes of general essays. Come to Think of It (1930) and All is Grist (1931).

His Prose Style

Chesterton writes with a perpetual relish for facts, he knows the habits of men and women as a reporter knows them. His positive dogmatic, and sudden in his statements and seems to find a great deal of fun in speaking extravagantly to an age which has been trained to accept only qualified judgement to be sceptical about everything. His style has the quality of self-consciousness. He never shows his ideas with any external embellishments. He knows how to express one’s qualities. He eschews the modern trend of finding out a reason for everything. His aim is to revive the traditional doctrines.