Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

about 80 books: 200 short stories

4000 essays several hundred of

poems plays

6 novels

Novels:The Napoleon of Notting

Hill The Man Who Was

Thursday The Flying Inn The Ball and the Cross

The Return of Don Quixote Manalive

writerjournalist

literary and social critic

historian Catholic theologian and

apologist

Characteristics of Chesterton’s work:

paradoxicality, unexpectedness, incredibility of

situations, moral preaching,

source of joy,they provoke deep

reflexions.

Two principal events of Chesterton’s life:

1. He adopted Catholicism

2. He married Frances Blogg

“Reason is always reasonable” (The Blue

Cross)

“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man

has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That

road goes down and down” (The Flying Stars)

“A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of

unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward

across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea”

(Manalive)

tenant – жилецboarding establishment – пансион

antic – нелепая выходкаHigh Court – Верховный

Судto elope – сбежать с

возлюбленным

Burglary - кража со взломом

desertion - оставление (семьи)

madhouse – сумасшедший дом

investigate – расследовать charge – обвинение (юрид.)

to involvе – вовлекать

trial - судеvidence – улика,

свидетельское показаниеto witness – быть

свидетелемinnocent - невинный

fire – стрелятьbullet – пуля

to value – ценитьspinster – незамужняя,

старая дева сourtship – ухаживание to acquit - освободить

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only

a living thing can go against it.” – The Everlasting Man

“Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-

rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and

cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better;

enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the

calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.” The

Common Man 

“The whole truth is generally the ally of

virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some

vice.” – ILN

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a

readiness to die.” – Orthodoxy 

If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a

black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always

painting it again. Briefly, if you want the old white

post you must have a new white post. Orthodoxy 

He had not had the smallest intention of

starving his chauffeur; he did not realise that there

was worse spiritual murder in merely

forgetting him. The Flying Inn.

Sources:1. Sermons and parables

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (article by

N.L. Trauberg)2. Wikipedia

Thank you!