Edmund Gosse (1849–1928)
Author of Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments
About the Author
Image credit: John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Series
Works by Edmund Gosse
English Literature An Illustrated Record Volume IV From The Age of Johnson To The Age Of Tennyson (1904) 3 copies
New poems 3 copies
From Shakespeare to Pope : an inquiry into the causes and phenomena of the riseof classical poetry in England (2013) 2 copies
In russet & silver 2 copies
The secret of Narcisse; a romance 2 copies
On viol and flute 2 copies
English Men of Letters: Gray 1 copy
Memoir of Thomas Lodge 1 copy
From Shakespeare to Pope 1 copy
The Critic: With an Introduction by Edmund Gosse and a Plate Representing the King As "Puff." (2010) 1 copy
The Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne. Edited by Edmund Gosse and Thomas James Wise. Volume 1 — Editor — 1 copy
Fallen Idol 1 copy
Transatlantic dialogue 1 copy
Sir Edmund Gosse 1 copy
Camille 1 copy
A Study of Shakespeare 1 copy
Associated Works
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contributor — 1,465 copies, 9 reviews
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Edition, Volume 2 (1979) — Contributor — 269 copies, 1 review
The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jack Wilton (1594) — Editor, some editions — 121 copies, 7 reviews
The Poetical Works of John Milton. With introduction by Edmund Gosse — Introduction, some editions — 3 copies
Robert Louis Stevenson. (The man & his work.) A Bookman extra number, 1913 — Contributor — 2 copies
Twenty-Five Caricatures — Introduction — 2 copies
A reader for writers — Contributor — 2 copies
The Fortnightly Review (Volume 44, Number 265) "Pen, Pencil and Poison: A Study" by Oscar Wilde — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Gosse, Edmund William
- Birthdate
- 1849-09-21
- Date of death
- 1928-05-16
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- art critic
Sunday School teacher
librarian (House of Lords)
lecturer (Trinity College, Cambridge)
translator
literary historian - Organizations
- Plymouth Brethren
British Museum
Cambridge University - Awards and honors
- Order of the Bath (Companion, 1912)
Knight Bachelor (1925) - Relationships
- Gosse, Philip Henry (father)
Gosse, Philip Henry George (son) - Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
St Marychurch, Devon, England, UK - Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Not a Victorian scientist novel... but a novel about a Victorian scientist. Well, a memoir told novelistically at any rate. You may know Edmund Gosse's father as Philip Henry Gosse, the man who did not say that God put the fossils there to test our faith, but whom everyone thought said that. Father and Son is a great read, but it had less to say about science and seeing scientifically than I had expected. If anything makes Philip Gosse a terrible dad (and he sure is, at least as Edmund tells show more it) it was his religious piety, which Edmund said left only "what is harsh and void and negative" (248). Philip was a self-denying emotionless man, but because he thought that was spiritually correct, not because of scientific training. A far cry from the mix of Christianity and science employed by Philip's friend Charles Kingsley. show less
Edmund Gosse was born in London in 1849. His parents, Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes, were evangelical Christians, members of the strict Plymouth Brethren sect, and from the outset their religious faith overpowered any other considerations in the upbringing of their only son. Even in the much more religious atmosphere of Victorian Britain, the Gosse family was extreme in its views, and their religion permeated their every activity, and those of their son. Associations with people outside show more their strict sect were discouraged, and the young Edmund grew up with virtually no companions outside his immediate family.
Much of the pleasure from reading this book comes from the reactions of the infant Edmund to the situation in which he found himself, which although clearly a loving home, was an unusual and sometimes harsh environment for a young child:
But equally interesting is the author's attempt to understand the mind of his father, his mother dying when he was quite young. Philip Henry Gosse was a well known naturalist who had published many books on natural history. He knew and corresponded with many of the scientists of the day, such as Darwin, Hooker and Lyell. But he was unable to reconcile Darwin's theory of evolution with his own religious faith, suffering a further blow when his book Omphalos, offered to suggest an explanation for the apparent age of the earth and the appearance of fossils, was soundly rejected:
This memoir was written in 1907 by which time Edmund Gosse had completely rejected his father's beliefs. From an upbringing in which all fiction was completely forbidden, he had become a poet, a lecturer in English Literature at Cambridge, a celebrated art critic and the person most responsible for introducing Ibsen's work to England.
Overall, this is an interesting book looking at the consequences of two very different 'temperaments' between father and son, as well as the upheavals in belief caused by the theory of evolution in the middle of the nineteenth century. show less
Much of the pleasure from reading this book comes from the reactions of the infant Edmund to the situation in which he found himself, which although clearly a loving home, was an unusual and sometimes harsh environment for a young child:
My parents said: 'Whatever you need, tell Him and He will grant it, if it is His will. 'Very well; I had need of a large painted humming-top which I had seen in a shop window in the Caledonian Road. Accordingly, I introduced a supplication for this object into my evening prayer, carefully adding the words: 'If it is Thy will'. This, I recollect, placed my Mother in a dilemma, and she consulted my Father. Taken, I suppose, at a disadvantage, my Father told me I must not pray for 'things like that'. To which I answered by another query, 'Why?' And I added that he said we ought to pray for things we'd needed, and that I needed the humming-top a great deal more than I did the conversion of the heathen or the restitution of Jerusalem to the Jews, two objects of my nightly supplication which left me very cold.
But equally interesting is the author's attempt to understand the mind of his father, his mother dying when he was quite young. Philip Henry Gosse was a well known naturalist who had published many books on natural history. He knew and corresponded with many of the scientists of the day, such as Darwin, Hooker and Lyell. But he was unable to reconcile Darwin's theory of evolution with his own religious faith, suffering a further blow when his book Omphalos, offered to suggest an explanation for the apparent age of the earth and the appearance of fossils, was soundly rejected:
'Never was a book cast upon the waters with greater anticipation of success than was this curious, this obstinate, this fanatical volume ... He offered it with a glowing gesture to atheists and Christians alike. This was to be a universal panacea; this the system of intellectual therapeutics which could not but heal all the maladies of the age. But alas, atheists and Christians alike looked at it and laughed, and threw it away'
This memoir was written in 1907 by which time Edmund Gosse had completely rejected his father's beliefs. From an upbringing in which all fiction was completely forbidden, he had become a poet, a lecturer in English Literature at Cambridge, a celebrated art critic and the person most responsible for introducing Ibsen's work to England.
Overall, this is an interesting book looking at the consequences of two very different 'temperaments' between father and son, as well as the upheavals in belief caused by the theory of evolution in the middle of the nineteenth century. show less
At the risk of showing my biases here, I can't help but see this as a quiet and deeply sad chronicle of the ways religious faith and the expectations it engenders in parents for their children can drive wedges between them and hollow people out. Or primarily that; it's also a record of the practices of a particular fundamentalist sect, the Plymouth Brethren; a historical document of one corner of the evolution controversy (the thing where humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time show more and the geological evidence was put on earth by God to trick us was not actually attributable to Philip Henry Gosse; it was a nasty caricature of his Omphalos by the press--funny how now it's considered fair comment and worthy of respect in some quarters); an examination of the furtive imaginations and priggish unpleasance of the stifled and melancholy child. But mostly it's the wedge-driving thing. Love your kids anyway--and that "anyway" should cover everything. show less
This memoir broke ground in the early 20th century by presenting generational conflict in an apparently frank, dispassionate, indeed "scientific" way. In its restrained way, it helped lead Gosse's countrymen from the piety of the Victorian vision of family life to Philip Larkin's definitive statement: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you." The truly fascinating part of reading show more this book is in the inexorable build up of the tension in the central relationship, a tension that is not fully realized until the extraordinary "Epilogue." It is also touching to witness the long-term effects of the father's indefatigable judgmentalism on the son's ingrained self-criticism. I am now going to provide an extended quote that will chill the blood of anyone possessed of an abundant super-ego in the form of an insistent voice of a strong parent figure. The fact that the author himself is not aware of life-blighting process that is just now beginning makes it all the more poignant: "But of all the thoughts which rushed upon my savage and undeveloped little brain at this crisis, the most curious was that I had found a companion and a confidant in myself. There was a secret in this world and it belonged to me and to a somebody who lived in the same body with me. There were two of us, and we could talk with one another. It is difficult to define impressions so rudimentary, but it is certain that it was in this dual form that the sense of my individuality now suddenly descended on me, and it is equally certain that it was a great solace to me to find a sympathizer in my own breast." That this "sympathizer" will mature into the child's most intolerant critic and implacable enemy is never recognized. "Ah, the pity of it Iago." show less
Lists
Non-fiction (1)
Backlisted (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 84
- Also by
- 30
- Members
- 1,130
- Popularity
- #22,721
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 14
- ISBNs
- 175
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 1
