On the pleasures of no longer being very young
by
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(Summary
& Analysis)
Chesterton was the essayist of ‘the modern
age’. It is also known as ‘the age of interrogation and anxiety’. The general
characteristics of the age are:
· anxiety
and interrogation,
· art
for life’s sake,
· growing
interest in the poor and the working classes,
· impact
of socioeconomic condition on literature,
· the
impact of two world wars and
· the
influence of radio and cinema.
G. K.
Chesterton, a writer of genius and achievements, was an essayist, novelist,
critic, biographer, poet and dramatist. He ranks very high among modern
essayists. He distinguished himself as a writer of humor and his writings are
full of paradoxes. He has the genius of making trifling things appear great and
significant. Some of his famous essays are: On the pleasure of no longer being
very young, The pleasure of Ignorance, The little angel and The volume of
selected essays.
In
the essay, On the pleasure of no longer being very young, Chesterton discusses
the advantages, which one develops as one advances into later life, through
middle age. The essayist says, the advantages of later life are generally
stated in a sentimental way rather than in a sensible way. He further says,
that the world around a young man seems to him as dead and unmeaning. He then
gives the reference of the world war. The man who was there before the war
knows the changes, which came in man after the war.
According
to the essayist, the experiences of later life are difficult to convey in words
to those, who have not reached at that age. His underlined paradox is, that the
young people do not realize modernity. By giving an example of a village ghost,
he tries to prove, that the world of young people is not moving away from the
supernatural but towards it.
In
this essay the essayist has expressed the advantages of later life in a
sensible way. According to him the men of age are often much more romantic and
adventures than young people. The man of age begins to see life and
significance in large number of traditions, institutions, maxims and codes of
manners. He says, that a young man grows up among those proverbs, which seem to
him quite stiff. It seems to him, that he is fed on the dust of dead past.
Chesterton further gives a beautiful and meaningful remark saying “A tradition
is not even traditional except when it is alive”. A youth, even in righteous
revolt, sees his surrounding as dead and unmeaning.
Chesterton
says, that after the drop of atom bomb, for the first time, the industrial
countries found it difficult to be industrious, while the old agricultural
countries still found it possible to be industrious. For him the things studied
in our young age starts seeming meaningful in later life like a startling
discovery. The difference between the pleasures of youth and of age is like the
difference between dimension and plane, between inorganic and organic etc. The
most important paradox in the essay is that the thing was a dead maxim when we
were alive with youth; it becomes a living maxim when we are nearer to death.
Even when we are dying the whole world is coming to life.
Chesterton
defines the older generation. According to him the older generation consists of
those people, who do remember a time when their world moved the other way.
According to him a young man cannot distinguish the subject from the background
but a man of age can. In the last part of the essay he says, that the world of
youth is moving towards supernatural and this is known by the people of age
because they were there before the world of youth had started.
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