originally published 11/1/2011

Ian Ker’s 700-page book G. K. Chesterton: A Biography (Oxford University Press, 2012) is a thorough exploration of Chesterton’s importance as an early twentieth-century literary figure. In this segment, Ker explains that Chesterton was until recently considered out of fashion, and is still almost totally neglected by current scholarship. Ker argues against critics of his biography who say that Chesterton is a minor figure, merely a fun character who should not be treated seriously. Urging his readers not to discount the man because of his larger-than-life persona, Ker discusses the seriousness with which Chesterton treated humor, and the extent to which he saw it as a path to the Christian virtue of humility. Chesterton also had a great ability to appreciate people apart from their intellectual flaws: he stood alone against the terrible views held by many of his contemporaries. A central idea of Chesterton’s work was the importance of limits. He saw natural limitations as central to the Christian idea of human life and as enabler of imagination and specificity. Chesterton opposed modern art because the idea of limitation was discarded, whereas he valued children highly for their natural delight in dealing with limitations. Ker concludes that the freshness of Chesterton’s imagination encourages Christians to constantly refresh their understanding of the faith.

This interview was originally presented on Volume 111 of the Journal.

24 minutes

PREVIEW

The player for the full version of this Feature is only available to current members. If you have an active membership, log in here. If you’d like to become a member — with access to all our audio programs — sign up here.

Related reading and listening

  • A sampling of newly published lectures — Ken Myers introduces listeners to four recently released lectures, courtesy of our Partners. The lecturers are Jennifer Frey, Gary Saul Morson, N. T. Wright, and Andrew Kern. (27 minutes)
  • Grace and Christian realism — Jennifer Frey explores Thomist elements in Flannery O’Connor’s theology and writing, with a particular emphasis on a Thomist understanding of art. (39 minutes)
  • God also was a Cave-man — G. K. Chesterton on the convergence of omnipotence and impotence in Bethlehem
  • A “cosmological omnibus” — George Grant recounts the fascinating history of Hernando Colón’s attempt in the 16th century to curate a universal library of the world’s knowledge. (41 minutes)
  • The pathos of sin —
    FROM VOL. 15
    Poet Robert Pinsky discusses his translation of Dante’s Inferno. (9 minutes)
  • Existential preparation for reading literature —
    FROM VOL. 128
    Rod Dreher recounts how he thought he was reading Dante’s Commedia, when in reality the poem was reading him. (18 minutes)
  • An icon of the whole world — Jason Baxter explains how Dante includes a panoply of characters and creatures in his Comedia, offering a prismatic view of all of Creation in its glory. (20 minutes)
  • The soul’s awakening —
    FROM VOL. 145
    Jason Baxter discusses the great psychological subtlety in Dante’s Divine Comedy. (20 minutes)
  • How literature shaped Lewis —
    FROM VOL. 155
    Jason Baxter explains how reading medieval literature enabled C. S. Lewis to become a “naturalized citizen of the Middle Ages.” (25 minutes)
  • Ontology and reality in fiction — Katy Carl discusses Catholic novelist Graham Greene’s skill in portraying the struggle between spiritual belief and doubt. (27 minutes)
  • Sacred and Profane Love: Graham Greene and the Catholic Imagination — Katy Carl discusses novelist Graham Greene’s fiction and spiritual struggles in light of the concept of the Catholic imagination. (49 minutes)
  • Alert to the magic in the world — Junius Johnson discusses the importance of teaching stories, particularly fairy stories, in classical education. (25 minutes)
  • The importance of literary reading —
    FROM VOL. 70
    Dana Gioia discusses the important role literary reading plays in society and the 2004 publication from the NEA about such reading. (13 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 164 — FEATURED GUESTS: Dana Gioia, Brady Stiller, Robert Royal, Richard DeClue, Tiffany Schubert, and Joonas Sildre
  • Flannery at 100 — In honor of Flannery O’Connor’s 100th birthday, we have gathered here an aural feast of interviews with O’Connor scholars and aficionados discussing her life, work, and faith. (3 hours, 28 minutes)
  • Ideas made incarnate — In this lecture, Karen Swallow Prior examines the power of great literature to shape lives, nourish imaginations, and develop a vision of the good life. (43 minutes)
  • Insights into O’Connor’s development as a writer —
    FROM VOL. 160
    Jessica Hooten Wilson discusses her experience studying and organizing Flannery O’Connor’s unfinished third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage? (27 minutes)
  • “A sign of contradiction” — In this lecture, Daniel Gibbons compares and contrasts understandings of sacramental poetics proposed by Augustine, Aquinas, and Sydney. (36 minutes)
  • The (super)natural theology of fairy-tales — Alison Milbank describes Chesterton’s belief that story-telling is an affirmation of transcendent meaning
  • Virgil and purposeful history — In this lecture from June 2019, classical educator Louis Markos examines Book II of The Aeneid to argue that Virgil had an eschatological view of history. (68 minutes)
  • Bearing well the burdens of the past, present, and future — Louis Markos shows how great literature like the Iliad links us to the human story and strengthens us to live fully and well. (65 minutes)
  • Books worthy of a lifetime of encounters —
    FROM VOL. 69
    Daniel Ritchie discusses why great books programs survive mainly in Christian institutions while declining in secular ones. (13 minutes)
  • Literature for wisdom, not propaganda —
    FROM VOL. 23
    Daniel Ritchie provides a constructive alternative to the ideological captivity of literature and literary studies. (13 minutes)
  • Apprehending the enduring things — Vigen Guroian explains how children’s literature has the capacity to birth the moral imagination in our children, affirming for them the permanent things. (53 minutes)
  • Christopher Hitchens vs. G. K. Chesterton — Ralph Wood compares Christopher Hitchens‘s view of the cosmos with that of G. K. Chesterton, arguing that Chesterton succeeded where Hitchens failed. (44 minutes)
  • Flannery O’Connor and Robert Giroux —
    FROM VOL. 147
    Biographer and priest Patrick Samway talks about the relationship between fiction writer Flannery O’Connor and the legendary editor Robert Giroux. (21 minutes)
  • The artist’s commitment to truth — Fr. Damian Ference, author of Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist, explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy. (18 minutes)
  • Flannery O’Connor and Thomistic philosophy — Fr. Damian Ference explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy, as evidenced by her reading habits, letters, prayer journal, and, of course, essays and fiction. (48 minutes)
  • Experiencing literature in its wholeness —
    FROM VOL. 50
    Glenn Arbery uses the analogies of sports fandom and ritual to explain how a “long habituation” in learning about form in literature enables one to enter into a greater depth of experience of reality through literature. (26 minutes)
  • The sacramental vision of G. K. Chesterton —
    FROM VOL. 112
    Ralph C. Wood describes G. K. Chesterton’s imagination as especially fruitful in conveying grace and edification to his readers. (19 minutes)
  • G. K. Chesterton’s defiant joy —
    FROM VOL. 110
    Biographer Kevin Belmonte on how G. K. Chesterton embraced a “defiant joy” in spite of the cynical pessimism of many of his contemporaries. (16 minutes)
  • Bemused by joy — Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., on G. K. Chesterton’s awareness of the reality of both evil and joy
  • Accounting for “the unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry” — Biographer Ian Ker on Chesterton’s rejection of the idea of the evolution of religions
  • Seeing the Christian story for what it is — Dale Ahlquist discusses a new edition of G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, to which he contributed an introduction, notes, and commentary. (34 minutes)
  • The university and the unity of knowledge — Biographer Ian Ker discusses John Henry Newman’s understanding the goal of “mental cultivation.” (17 minutes)
  • Books, beliefs, and loving conversations — Holly Ordway talks about the need for “intellectual hospitality” when we encounter books (or people) whose beliefs are very different from our own. (19 minutes)
  • Sustaining a heritage of wisdom — Louise Cowan (1916–2015) explains how the classics reach the deep core of our imagination and teach us to order our loves according to the wholeness of reality. (16 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 157 — FEATURED GUESTS: Allan C. Carlson, Matthew Stewart, Steven Knepper, Holly Ordway, Norm Klassen, and Norman Wirzba
  • Faulkner’s tragic vision — Alan Jacobs describes how William Faulkner’s fiction explored the tragedy of living with a legacy of evil acts. (26 minutes)
  • Teachers and Learners — Ian Ker shares John Henry Newman’s ideals of learning, and Mark Schwehn discusses the virtues of good teachers. (27 minutes)
  • Communion of saints — Jessica Hooten Wilson asserts that reading stories of holiness in the lives of “literary saints” helps to cultivate Christian character in us. (25 minutes)
  • The consequential witness of St. Patrick — Thomas Cahill describes how the least likely saviors of Western heritage, the Irish, copied all of classical and Christian literature while barbarians rampaged through the rest of Europe. (16 minutes)
  • Art and the truth of things — Joseph Nicolello explains the origins and themes of his imaginary dialogue between Jacques Maritain and Flannery O’Connor. (28 minutes)
  • Feelings made articulate — Glenn C. Arbery on poetry and the intelligibility of the inner life
  • The wide, wide resonance of local details — Novelist Larry Woiwode on the unbreakable bond between specificity and universality
  • Seeing things as they are — F. A. Lea on the imaginative vision of G. K. Chesterton
  • Freedom and equality according to Flannery O’Connor — Three guests discuss Flannery O’Connor’s ideas: Henry T. Edmondson, III, on O’Connor’s understanding of political life; Ralph C. Wood, on O’Connor as a “hillbilly Thomist”; and Susan Srigley, on O’Connor’s sacramental and incarnational fiction. (18 minutes)
  • Chesterton and Tolkien as theologians — Alison Milbank discusses how both Chesterton and Tolkien restore reason to fantasy and help us to see things as we were meant to see them. (20 minutes)
  • What they saw in America — Sociologist James Nolan describes the perception of American culture of four distinguished foreign travelers: Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, G. K. Chesterton, and Sayyid Qutb. (5 minutes)
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 137 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen
Tags: