Write a note on Chesterton's prose style.

Write a note on Chesterton’s prose style.

Ans.

Introduction

Chesterton has a great skill in dialectical writing. He possesses the gift of writing with peculiar simplicity and beauty, and with utmost clearness. Anti-thesis is his governing passion. He has also a genius for paradox. He reveals in antithesis, distinctions identities and absurdities. He argues usually by analogies and examples, though there is likely to be a real idea behind his display of fireworks and often he is talking the plainest kind of sense. He has a gift for illustration worthy of a great poet; the world is constantly alive for him, and images occur to him naturally from the farthest end of it. He is 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 judgements, to be sceptical about everything.

Capacity for Argument and Philosophical Attitude

His essays entitled On the Pleasures of No Longer Being Very Young he clears the advantages of old age of a man. The first noticeable quality of Chesterton’s art of essay-writing is his capacity for argument. He supports his ideas with very convincing arguments. The author gives two main arguments: old people are better able to see the significance of many things than young people, and the old people can appreciate modernity or novelty better than young people can. Sometimes he behaves like a philosopher. He plays on words like a philosopher.

Self-Consciousness in His Style

Chesterton never shows his ideas with any external embellishments. Undoubtedly, during his particular topics. the reader feels his ideas are ancient and original because they generally flow out in a continuous stream. He knows very well about his writing topics. Without any external embellishments, he shows his ideas. There is a special quality in his thoughts which flow out in a continuous stream. They have a special quality of an impressive effect. He propagates orthodox religion. He makes efforts to show a thought in its minutest form. He knows the skill very well how he should explain any mental ideal true and impressive.

The Use of Satire and Humour

In the essay The Worship of the Wealthy, he passes satire on the modern writers and journalists who publish the interviews of the wealthy and great persons after observing the habits, manners, living style and fondness. He passes satire on the way of the writers and journalists in which, they adorn the characteristics of some wealthy man with their own ideas and present a credible picture. Next he pokes fun at the use of the word ‘modest’, ‘simple’ and ‘quiet’. These words are used by the moderns in a very odd manner. About the word ‘modest’, he says that this word will soon become like the word ‘honourable. Further he says: “We shall read in the future, that the modest King went out in his modest crown, clad from head to foot in modest gold and attended with his ten thousand modest earls, their swords modestly drawn.”