Among the genres in which G. K. Chesterton wrote was critical biography. With typical paradox, Chesterton defined two duties for such authors that seem contradictory but are actually complementary. First, he referred to “that understanding sympathy with his subject which every biographer should possess.” Yet he also held that “criticism does not exist to say … Read more
The poet David Jones once called one’s formative period “the years of becoming.” William Oddie focuses on this phase of G. K. Chesterton’s life, seeking to document how someone reared in a conventional late-Victorian milieu became, by early adulthood, a renowned Christian, countercultural critic. Oddie’s account makes several scholarly breakthroughs; but its value as a … Read more
In 1989, Gregory Wolfe uttered a cri du coeur bemoaning academic neglect of the modern “Catholic Intellectual Renaissance.” He lamented that the “current establishment” treated thinkers like G. K. Chesterton, Christopher Dawson, and Evelyn Waugh with “amused condescension” as representatives of “an order that has largely been left behind in our progress toward a more … Read more