The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961: Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, Waugh

The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961: Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, Waugh.  By Ian Ker, University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.

 

In this book, Ian Ker presents profiles of six of the most prominent Catholic British authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  All but Belloc were converts to Catholicism.  Throughout their careers, these authors continually incorporate themes of faith, the clergy, and theology in their writings, ranging from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. 

 

Nearly all of the authors discussed in this book (I am as of this time unfamiliar with the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins) are favorites of mine.  I am not a fan of these authors simply because they are Catholics. Rather, I am captivated by the way that these authors invigorate and enrich their work through the worldview expressed in their books, and it just so happens that their worldviews are driven by their faith.  One of my favorite quotes on literature comes from the novelist, essayist, and social critic Alice Thomas Ellis, who quipped, “Once you take away the religious element, you can’t write fiction. Well, you can, but it’s boring.”

 

Other than a brief introduction and an even briefer conclusion, Ker’s book is composed of six chapters, each devoted to a short biographical overview of one of the authors, as well as a critique of some of each author’s work and the Catholic themes that permeate it.  The chapters grow longer as the book proceeds.  The first chapter on Newman is only about thirty pages, which is far too short to do justice to the man’s life and work.  Comparatively, the final chapter on Waugh is around fifty pages, composing nearly a quarter of the book.  The added length makes for a much better analysis, since far more of Waugh’s books are referenced here.  Casual readers should be cautious– some major plot points and spoilers are included in the chapters on Greene and Waugh.

 

Given the lengths of these profiles, and the details provided about each of these authors’ writings, these chapters might work best for readers with introductory-level knowledge about these authors.  Those who are well-versed on these writers will find a great deal of factual information that they already know, but the main attraction of this book will be for people who seek to find out how great writers were able to blend faith into their work.

 

The first two chapters on Newman and Hopkins are good overviews of the authors and their work, but their primary shortcoming is their brevity.  Ker touches upon some intriguing autobiographical information on the pair, but only a handful of sentences are provided on the topics before the direction shifts.  Herein lies the central difficulty of a work such as this.  When dealing with extremely talented authors who deal with massive themes and important topics, it takes considerable skills to condense the men and their writings into a few dozen pages.  The Newman and Hopkins chapters are the weakest– the two men are not sufficiently developed as individuals.  Thankfully, the next four chapters provide vivid images of the men in question.

 

The chapters on Belloc and Chesterton give extremely enjoyable glimpses of the authors and their work.  Some problems lie in the critical analysis of the pair.  Belloc is summed up as a minor writer, whose greatest works were his comic verse and his book The Path to Rome.  Belloc was a brilliant humorist and poet, and The Path to Rome is a classic, but I strongly disagree with Ker’s categorization of the man.  Indeed, Belloc’s histories, which sought to debunk the Whig version of history, which denigrated Catholic England in favor of the rise of Protestantism, are critical to understanding his Catholic literary mindset.  Belloc’s economic treatises, which blended Catholic moral teachings with monetary concerns, are another field where a social science was infused with faith.  By not including Belloc’s historical and economic studies, let alone his fiction, this chapter seems oddly hollow.

 

At one point, Belloc’s famous Christmas song, blending the joys of faith with tongue-in-cheek curses is cited.  When I hear this song, it brings on the warm fuzzy feelings in a way that “Frosty the Snowman” never could:

 

Noël! Noël! Noël! Noël!

A Catholic tale have I to tell!

And a Christian song have I to sing

While all the bells in Arundel ring.

 

I pray good beef and I pray good beer

This holy night of all the year,

But I pay detestable drink for them

That give no honor to Bethlehem.

 

May all good fellows that here agree

Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me

And may all my enemies go to hell!

Noël! Noël! Noël! Noël!

May all my enemies go to hell!

Noël! Noël!

 

In order to give proper due to the man and his work, the poem and its themes, hidden meanings, and humor would have to be analyzed and discussed. Unfortunately, the poem and others like it are not sufficiently critiqued, perhaps due to Ker’s insistence that Belloc is a “minor” writer.  Given the limited information provided, it is understandable that the reader who is uninitiated in the books of Belloc might concur that the man was a “minor” writer, but this would be a gross shortchanging of a remarkable wordsmith.

 

Ker refers to Chesterton as “Dickensian,” and with good reason.  Chesterton has many similarities to Dickens characters, such as Mr. Micawber from David Copperfield.  The major disappointment of this chapter is Ker’s seemingly selling Chesterton short.  Chesterton’s massive religious-themed output is barely addressed here, and his theology-saturated Father Brown mysteries are referenced but not discussed, and his novels are similarly ignored, despite the heavy spiritual themes of The Man Who was Thursday, The Ball and the Cross, Manalive, and The Flying Inn.

 

Ker argues that Chesterton’s best work is his collection of critical essays on the work of Charles Dickens.  There is something to be said for this selection– his book in Dickens is certainly a masterpiece, and shows Chesterton at the height of his powers, yet to focus on this work at the expense of all of his others, and to categorize Chesterton as yet another figure in the tradition of Victorian nonfiction prose stylists is accurate, yet oddly incomplete.  I should reiterate that this an original, intelligent, and well-crafted depiction of Chesterton’s work, and yet Chesterton’s chapter, like those of Newman, Hopkins, and Belloc, seems to only say a little bit about a very big subject.

 

The best essays are the last two on Greene and Waugh.  Both authors are given fairly substantial biographies, although I have grown tired of the typical characterizations of Greene as a man who was very much a “burnt-out case” in the later decades of his life, and Waugh as a Catholic left adrift in the wake of Vatican II.  There is a lot of truth in these depictions, yet after reading their work from that period I can’t help but feel that there was far more to their stories than that.  Wisely, Ker ends his chapter on Greene by mentioning my favorite anecdote about Greene, which coincidentally happens to be my favorite anecdote about Waugh, as well.

 

In the mid-1950’s, Graham Greene informed Evelyn Waugh that he was seriously considering ceasing writing about God in his novels, and Waugh firmly replied “Oh, I wouldn’t drop God if I were you.  Not at this stage anyway.  It would be like P.G. Wodehouse dropping Jeeves halfway through the Wooster series.”

 

I liked this book a lot.  Perhaps my major problem with it lies with me, and not Ker.  The plain fact is, if I were to write a book like this– and I hope to some day– it would be radically different from The Catholic Revival in English Literature.  The focus, arguments, and critique would be utterly unlike Ker’s.  I can’t blame Ker for not being me.  Yet I can’t help feeling that this book reinforces the popular mindset that these Catholic writers are a subset genre, talented certainly, yet not part of the “canon.”  Perhaps my feelings are better expressed by Chesterton in his opening pages of his book on Charles Dickens:

 

In everyday talk, or in any of our journals, we may find the loose but important phrase, "Why have we no great men to-day? Why have we no great men like Thackeray, or Carlyle, or Dickens?" Do not let us dismiss this expression, because it appears loose or arbitrary. "Great" does mean something, and the test of its actuality is to be found by noting how instinctively and decisively we do apply it to some men and not to others; above all, how instinctively and decisively we do apply it to four or five men in the Victorian era, four or five men of whom Dickens was not the least. The term is found to fit a definite thing. Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means. Even the fastidious and unhappy who cannot read his books without a continuous critical exasperation, would use the word of him without stopping to think. They feel that Dickens is a great writer even if he is not a good writer. He is treated as a classic; that is, as a king who may now be deserted, but who cannot now be dethroned. The atmosphere of this word clings to him; and the curious thing is that we cannot get it to cling to any of the men of our own generation. "Great" is the first adjective which the most supercilious modern critic would apply to Dickens. And "great" is the last adjective that the most supercilious modern critic would apply to himself We dare not claim to be great men, even when we claim to be superior to them.

 

–Chris Chan