Fact and Fiction in Gosse’s Father and Son

Abstract

Exposes the fictional nature of Gosse’s biography and of Victorian biography in general. Sees Gosse’s use of metaphor as both a means of illuminating central themes derived from a reflection on his life and as a way of giving greater significance to that life. Demonstrates how Gosse combines autobiography with the account of his father’s life to show how the son, as modern man, comes to separate himself from a world in which religious certitude governed human action.