is the poignant but witty account of Edmund Gosse’s childhood in his mid-Victorian Plymouth Brethren home. Sometimes regarded as a
künstlerroman, the work traces Gosse’s yearning for, and fleeting glimpses of, the fiction that was forbidden him on account of his mother’s religious convictions. The text contains over one hundred literary allusions, which ironically employ the adult experience of extensive reading to convey the childhood experience of restricted reading. The narrative comprises twelve untitled chapters which treat the period from Edmund’s birth to the age of seventeen when he leaves home. The Epilogue summarises the next four years, when he is working in London, but still feeling oppressed by his father’s expectations. The narrative ends with…
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Citation: Rees, Kathy. "Father and Son: A study of two temperaments". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 November 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=27907, accessed 26 November 2024.]
