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1

“The Whole Green Theatre of that Swift and Inexplicable Tragedy”: Gardens in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown Stories

100%

Kowalik B.

Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

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2015

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issue 24/1

19-40

EN

This paper provides a survey of garden settings in Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s detective stories about Father Brown, followed by more detailed readings of the first four of the stories, which introduce the clerical sleuth and his principal antagonists and establish the rules of Chesterton’s semiotics of the green theatre of crime.

2

Heresy and Orthodoxy Now: The Zigzagging Paths of the Lawful

88%

Zając M.

Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture

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2019

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issue 9

213-222

EN

In this article I consider a certain characteristic of our times as a “secular age,” namely, a series of complications in our understanding of transgression. Transgression implies the presence of some rules and laws which can be violated. As long as the rules and laws are perceived as right, as a way of protecting the values which would otherwise perish, transgression appears to be a wrong thing to do, a misdeed, a criminal act. Needless to say, the very conceptual structure makes sense only provided that the distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, lawful and lawless are not arbitrary, which, in turn, depends on the presence of the concept of truth. In the secular age, though, the concept of truth becomes not only difficult to handle, since it is incompatible with the modern frame of mind, but also assumes some derogatory connotations, up to the point when to insist on the distinction between (truly) right and (truly) wrong is in itself a wrong thing to do. That is the state of contemporary societies which G. K. Chesterton examines in his work Heretics. The effect of Chesterton’s reflections is a new map of right/wrong, good/evil, lawless/lawful permutations. After Chesterton, I comment on the character of a new heretic, one for whom transgression, understood as the attack on buried-for-long orthodoxy, is too easy a thing to do. To illustrate the mentioned changes of perspective, I refer to an exemplary criminal figure of the West, that is, the biblical serpent, and its criticism.

3

The Cycle of Night and Day in The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton

71%

Szymczak-Kordulasińska M.

Roczniki Humanistyczne

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2022

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vol. 70

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issue 11

91-104

PL

Pojawiający się często w metaforyce Chestertona motyw światła i ciemności, w powieści Kula i krzyż przybiera formę cyklu dnia i nocy. Cykl ten narzuca fabule określony rytm, który rządzi zarówno toczącym się pojedynkiem głównych bohaterów, jak i innymi wydarzeniami. Czas wieczorny i nocny jest raczej przeznaczony dla istotnych i głębokich refleksji, które pojawiają się na przykład w pierwszej i ostatniej scenie powieści oraz w trakcie innych wydarzeń decydujących o rozwoju duchowym bohaterów. Wydaje się, że czas dzienny bardziej sprzyja rozwojowi relacji łączącej ich ze sobą i światem zewnętrznym.

EN

Part of Chesterton’s imagery that he often employs in his writing is the motif of light and darkness, which in The Ball and the Cross takes the form of the cycle of night and day. This cycle dictates a specific rhythm, which rules over both the ongoing duel and other events. Thus, the evening and night time is rather reserved for considerable and profound insights, found in, for instance, the opening and closing scenes and in all the events that reflect or decide about the characters’ spiritual growth. The day time seems to contribute more to the development of the protagonists’ relationship with each other and the world around.

Refine search results

1 Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

1 Roczniki Humanistyczne

1 Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture

1 Kowalik B.

1 Szymczak-Kordulasińska M.

1 Zając M.

1 2022

1 2019

1 2015

“The Whole Green Theatre of that Swift and Inexplicable Tragedy”: Gardens in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown Stories

Heresy and Orthodoxy Now: The Zigzagging Paths of the Lawful

The Cycle of Night and Day in The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton