Father And Son: A Study Of Two Temperaments

Father And Son: A Study Of Two Temperaments
by Edmund Gosse

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Amazon.com
The era in which faith and reason conflicted in a profound manner seems far away, and perhaps even a bit incomprehensible, to citizens of the modern world. Most of us take for granted our right to choose the life of the mind over that of the spirit without feeling remorse. At the very least, we've learned that the two need not be mutually exclusive. But this is hard-won ease, born of a conflict that began with the Victorians. Edmund Gosse's Father and Son (1907) traces his own reckoning--as well as that of his father, the eminent British zoologist Philip Gosse--with the clash. His story is, as he declares, "The diagnosis of a dying Puritanism."

The only Puritanism that dies here, however, is the author's. His parents were Christian fundamentalists and as a result, young Edmund was denied interaction with other children as well as all variety of fictional tales. "Here was perfect purity," Gosse writes, "perfect intrepidity, perfect abnegation; yet there was also narrowness, isolation, and absence of perspective, let it boldly be admitted, an absence of humanity." Despite all of this, the child maintained his sense of humor, which adds much levity to a tale of such potentially grim proportions.

When Edmund was 8, his mother died of cancer, leaving him the care of a man in whom "sympathetic imagination ... was singularly absent." Philip Gosse held on to his faith in God above all else--so much so, in fact, that when evolutionary theory was announced to the world, he dismissed it entirely because it discounted the book of Genesis. Little by little, Edmund began to chafe against the traditions he had inherited. By the age of 11, he already saw himself "imprisoned for ever in the religious system which had caught me and would whurl my helpless spirit." At this point he believed his fate was sealed and went through the motions of piety. It is not until he goes off to boarding school, and discovers the Greeks and Romantic poetry, that he slowly chooses his own path. Eventually he comes to realize that he and his father "walked in opposite hemispheres of the soul." Their split encapsulates a particular moment in history but also embodies their destiny: "one was born to fly backward, the other could not help being carried forward." --Melanie Rehak

From AudioFile
English poet, author, and critic Gosse injected humor and pathos into this memoir of his difficult relationship with his puritanical father. Absent, thankfully, are the self-pity and malice so common in the literary offspring of problem parents. Gosse seems to have cared a great deal for his folks, despite the conflicts. His prose is remarkably lean for prose of the era. Narrator Peter Joyce reads clearly and gracefully, although he sounds a bit stuffier than the author deserves. One hears his enjoyment of this work and his sympathy for its characters. Y.R. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Autobiography by Edmund Gosse, published anonymously in 1907. Considered a minor masterpiece, Father and Son is a sensitive study of the clash between religious fundamentalism and intellectual curiosity. The book recounts Gosse's austere childhood, particularly his relationship to his father, the eminent zoologist Philip Henry Gosse. In the conflict between his rigid fundamentalism and mounting scientific knowledge, the elder Gosse rejected science for his faith. The younger Gosse, with his vast thirst for knowledge of the broader world, was finally unable to accept his father's beliefs.

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