The England of G. K. Chesterton: Patriotism, Christianity, and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Britain

A new study of Chesterton is important to a number of central and interrelated concerns in the historiography of twentieth-century Britain at present. The issue of the Victorians in the twentieth century has much exercised historians recently. It was the subject of a landmark study edited by Peter and Susan Pedersen in 1994 and an international conference at the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies last July. The question of English and British national identity and patriotism since the late-nineteenth century remains high on the agenda of historiographical debate, most notably through recent works by Krishan Kumar, Jonathan Clark, and Robert Colis. All three historians emphasis Chesterton's importance in developing the populist undercurrents of English identity in this period and enhancing national self-consciousness; but a detailed exploration of his work as a prophet of English nationhood, its basis, impact and historical legacy has yet to be undertaken. Similarly, J.H. Grainger's book, Patriotisms: Britain, 1900-1940 (1 986) well succeeds in eliciting Chesterton's contribution to the 'noisy' atmosphere of Edwardian patriotism. But there remains much scope for elaboration, not least in relation to the tension between the discourses of citizenship and patriotism that I have worked out in a recent article in The Historical Journal. Finally, the study of literary journalism in early-twentieth century Britain as a key channel of political debate and opinion has continued to thrive under the influence of John Gross's The Rise and Faff of the English Man of Letters (1969), with recent articles in the Journal of Victorian Culture by Mauriello and Macleod.

My main aims and objectives are to demonstrate how Chesterton's writings

represent a moment of English national identity that clashed with the largely secular discourse of citizenship propagated by the intellectual and cultural elite in early-twentieth century Britain; also racial conceptions of England

played a significant role in shaping English self-understanding and identity in the twentieth-century and beyond, despite the increasing secularisation of the national culture

sustained in altered guises the tradition of the late-Victorian man of letters as public moralist well beyond the Edwardian period complicate existing understandings of the boundary between the Victorian and the modern in twentieth-century Britain
helped to raise the 'English' profile of Roman Catholicism in Britain between the wars

have been misjudged by contemporary writers and critics with 'modernising' agendas

1 Potential Applications and Benefits

This research bears directly upon the public debate about the nature of national identity and patriotism in England and Britain that has intensified in recent months. Chesterton's conception of the English nation as the 'Secret People'- averse to both domination and being dominated- and his advocacy of patriotism have left a permanent mark on the national culture. This has been recognised recently by the writer and critic; Patrick Wright in The guardian Review and_- subsequently the journal, surroundings but Wright has fundamentally misunderstood Chesterton and his admirers as mindless reactionaries. This study offers a richer, more balanced view of Chesterton's patriotism and his English vision.
In addition, this research will go some way to correcting the lacuna in studies of early twentieth century literature that Chris Baldick has recently highlighted in volume 10 of the Oxford Literary History, The Modern Movement. As he argues, current preoccupations with Modernism and Modernists in English Studies have effectively sidelined non-Modernist authors such as Chesterton, whose influence was far greater than some of the major Modernist figures. As Chesterton's prose works and poems cannot be divorced from the controversy he continually courted through journalism, my study will contribute to a wider literary appreciation of the period