Questions at Issue by Edmund Gosse
The memoir explores the author's conflicted relationship with his parents, particularly his father, Philip Henry Gosse, a British naturalist and Christian fundamentalist. The narrative delves into the author's childhood, marked by his father's strict religious upbringing and the tension between his love for nature and his father's rigid beliefs.
By Edmund Gosse · First published 1917 · Genre: Biography, Non-fiction, Literary Criticism · 12 chapters · 69,390 words
First lines
A Parisian Hebraist has been attracting a moment's attention to his paradoxical and learned self by announcing that strong-hearted and strong-brained nations do not produce novels. This gentleman's soul goes back, no doubt in longing and despair, to the heart of Babylon and the brain of Gath. But if he looks for a modern nation that does not cultivate the novel, he must, I am afraid, go far afield. Finland and Roumania are certainly tainted; Bohemia lies in the bond of naturalism. Probably Montenegro is the one European nation which this criterion would leave strong in heart and brain. The amusing absurdity of this whim of a pedant may serve to remind us how universal is now the reign of prose fiction. In Scandinavia the drama may demand an equal prominence, but no more. In all other countries the novel takes the largest place, claims and obtains the widest popular attention, is the admitted tyrant of the whole family of literature.
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Questions at Issue is listed on Textopian as a novel by Edmund Gosse, dated 1917 CE.
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- Work type: Novel
- Author: Edmund Gosse
- Date: 1917 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Biography, Non-fiction, Literary Criticism, History
- Length: 69,390 words
- Structure: 12 chapters, 598 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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Genres
- Biography — The work is a collection of biographical essays about various literary figures.
- Non-fiction — The work is based on real people and events, not fictional ones.
- Literary Criticism — The work includes analysis and critique of other literary works.
- History — The work provides historical context and information about the subjects.
Tags
Literary Criticism · Essays · 19th Century Literature · British Literature · Non-Fiction · Cultural Analysis · Social Commentary · Historical Context · Intellectual History · Philosophical Inquiry · Aesthetic Theory · Art Criticism
Contents
- The Tyranny of the Novel
- The Influence of Democracy on Literature
- Has America Produced a Poet?
- What is a Great Poet?
- Making a Name in Literature
- The Limits of Realism in Fiction
- Is Verse in Danger?
- Tennyson - and After
- Shelley in 1892
- Symbolism and M. Stephane Mallarme
- TWO PASTELS
- An Election at the English Academy