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Chesterton wanted to open us the doors to the Earth. He wanted to, in a way, turn our eyes towards the world before us and usher in the proximity of things, of each other and of God. His mission involved turning the kosmos<\/em> into oikos<\/em>, substance into being, life itself into the everyday, God into a flesh and bone character and philosophy into history.<\/p>\n There were many circumstances involved in the young Gilbert\u2019s existential crisis. He had already drifted apart from the Unitarian Church and was going through a period of agnosticism. The dispersal of the Junior Debating Club members to go study in different English universities and the end of its activities it ensued, the fact of going through a time of uncertainty and doubt while he hesitated over the choice between the arts or literature, and above all, the decadent and sceptical environment he encountered upon his arrival in the Slade School of Fine Arts, led him to live, for a time, in the depths of pessimism. Reading Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson helped him get through this dark age.<\/p>\n His spirit, laden with wonder and gratitude, seeps into an infinity of questions, locations and scenes which, after drawing on them in a reflexive manner, can be useful to discover the guiding thread which pervades his pages. His uniqueness is due to the polymorphic aspect of his work: articles, biographies, poems, stories, novels, histories\u2026 All said and done, Chesterton himself expressed that his books constituted \u201cthe gargoyles of a particular chuch\u201d (Alarms and Discussions<\/em>).<\/p>\n If there are two ways to reach a position, one being that of \u201cnever departing from it\u201d, Chesterton always chose the other, which consisted \u201cin going around the world until you reach the starting point\u201d (The Everlasting Man<\/em>). This questioning attitude, described by Fazio as a \u201cgrateful awe\u201d, was a realization of the contingency of the world, the experience of shipwreck and of his father\u2019s place in his life, all of which prepared Chesterton for an opening-up of his spirit, full of joy and admiration, toward transcendence and faith. After all, it is no coincidence Chesterton stated that all roads lead to Rome.<\/p>\n The use of the paradox constitutes both one of the most important and one of the most compelling elements in Chesterton\u2019s work, in all its different spheres (essay, fiction, articles). According to H. Kenner, its use represents the heart of his thinking and his writings, hence the fact he\u2019s come to be called \u201cthe eccentric prince of paradox\u201d (J. D. Douglas). The use of the paradox is fundamental in Chesterton\u2019s religious reflections precisely because of Christianity\u2019s paradoxical nature, with Jesus Christ as its ultimate example. For this reason, Chesterton makes a prolific use of it in his personal Christian apologetics, not only as a recourse but as an element which underlies the heart of the matter in question. The chapter in Orthodoxy<\/em> called \u201cThe paradoxes of Christianity\u201d must be highlighted in this regard, since he explicitly deals with this matter and presents Christianity as a risky balance, a hazardous synthesis which avoids the mediocrity of dilution and delivers to life an unusual intensity.<\/p>\n Chesterton can be thought of as a reactionary in the etymological sense of the term, since his thinking is a reaction to the prophecies which floated around the intellectual atmosphere of his formative years: imperialism, unrestricted faith in progress, cosmopolitism or materialism. He thus resumes the Victorian reaction, manifested by Carlyle, John Ruskin or William Morris, by opposing modernity with social and socializing ideals which emphasize the central role of spirituality, art and culture. Later on, he will embrace the criticism of monopolistic big money (which originated in America) and state socialism in order to defend a world on a smaller scale, rooted in the community, and a romantic poetry best summed up in the principle \u201csmall is beautiful\u201d. Ancient beauty, according to Chesterton, bound little England to Europe and made of the medieval form the most significant expression of disappointment with modern reality.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ThoughtA world of ideas Chesterton wanted to open us the doors to the Earth. He wanted to, in a way, turn our eyes towards the world before us and usher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1284,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1312","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nExistential and intellectual crisis<\/h2>\n
Towards a system of his own<\/h2>\n
Christianity<\/h2>\n
The paradox<\/h2>\n
Critic of modernity<\/h2>\n