Editing G. K. Chesterton (section)

==Contemporaries==

==="Chesterbelloc"===
{{See also|G. K.'s Weekly}}

[[File:Shaw, Belloc e Chesterton.jpg|thumb|[[George Bernard Shaw]], [[Hilaire Belloc]], and G. K. Chesterton]]

Chesterton is often associated with his close friend, the poet and essayist [[Hilaire Belloc]].<ref>Mccarthy, John P. (1982). "The Historical Vision of Chesterbelloc", ''Modern Age'', Vol. XXVI, No. 2, pp.&nbsp;175–182.</ref><ref>McInerny, Ralph. [http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/rmcinerny_chesterbelloc_aug06.asp "Chesterbelloc"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429052646/http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/rmcinerny_chesterbelloc_aug06.asp |date=29 April 2013 }} ''Catholic Dossier'', May/June 1998.</ref> George Bernard Shaw coined the name "Chesterbelloc"<ref>Shaw, George Bernard (1918). [http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1140813740390342.pdf "Belloc and Chesterton"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060911084540/http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1140813740390342.pdf |date=11 September 2006 }} ''The New Age'', South Africa Vol. II, No. 16, pp. 309–311.</ref> for their partnership,<ref>Lynd, Robert (1919). [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026941678#page/n27/mode/2up "Mr. G. K. Chesterton and Mr. Hilaire Belloc"]. In: ''Old and New Masters''. London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., pp. 25–41.</ref> and this stuck. Though they were very different men, they shared many beliefs;<ref>McInerny, Ralph. [http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2008/the-chesterbelloc-thing.html "The Chesterbelloc Thing"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121229110253/http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2008/the-chesterbelloc-thing.html |date=29 December 2012 }}, ''The Catholic Thing'', 30 September 2008.</ref> in 1922, Chesterton joined Belloc in the Catholic faith, and both voiced criticisms of capitalism and socialism.<ref>Wells, H. G. (1908). [http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1140813732859166.pdf "About Chesterton and Belloc"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060911090920/http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1140813732859166.pdf |date=11 September 2006 }} ''The New Age'', South Africa Vol. II, No. 11, pp. 209–210 (Rep. in ''Social Forces in England and America'', 1914).</ref> They instead espoused a third way: [[distributism]].<ref>"Belloc and the Distributists", ''The American Review'', November 1933.</ref> ''[[G. K.'s Weekly|G.&nbsp;K.'s Weekly]]'', which occupied much of Chesterton's energy in the last 15 years of his life, was the successor to Belloc's ''[[New Witness]]'', taken over from [[Cecil Chesterton]], Gilbert's brother, who died in World War I.

In his book ''On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters'', Belloc wrote that "Everything he wrote upon any one of the great English literary names was of the first quality.  He summed up any one pen (that of [[Jane Austen]], for instance) in exact sentences; sometimes in a single sentence, after a fashion which no one else has approached.  He stood quite by himself in this department. He understood the very minds (to take the two most famous names) of [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]] and of [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]. He understood and presented [[George Meredith|Meredith]]. He understood the supremacy in [[John Milton|Milton]]. He understood [[Alexander Pope|Pope]]. He understood the great [[John Dryden|Dryden]]. He was not swamped as nearly all his contemporaries were by [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], wherein they drown as in a vast sea – for that is what Shakespeare is. Gilbert Chesterton continued to understand the youngest and latest comers as he understood the forefathers in our great corpus of English verse and prose."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Belloc |first=Hilaire |url=http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/Belloc-essay.txt |title=On the Place of Chesterton in English Letters |date=1940 |publisher=Sheed & Ward |location=London |access-date=19 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217124223/http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/Belloc-essay.txt |archive-date=17 February 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Wilde===
In his book ''[[Heretics (book)|Heretics]]'', Chesterton said this of [[Oscar Wilde]]: "The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the [[carpe diem]] religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw."{{Sfn|Chesterton|1905|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch7.html chapter 7]}} More briefly, and with a closer approximation to Wilde's own style, he wrote in his 1908 book ''[[Orthodoxy (book)|Orthodoxy]]'' concerning the necessity of making symbolic sacrifices for the gift of creation: "Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde."

===Shaw===
Chesterton and [[George Bernard Shaw]] were famous friends and enjoyed their arguments and discussions. Although rarely in agreement, they each maintained good will toward, and respect for, the other.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/chesterton-gallery-of-beloved-enemies|title=Misguided Superman Fan: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)|website=Christian History Institute}}</ref> In his writing, Chesterton expressed himself very plainly on where they differed and why. In ''Heretics'' he writes of Shaw:

{{blockquote|After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby.{{Sfn|Chesterton|1905|loc=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170115201317/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch4.html chapter 4]}}}}