‘Something out of the way’: Sir Edmund Gosse’s biography of Henrik Ibsen

In 1907, Edmund Gosse published two biographies, Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments and Henrik Ibsen. In her chapter on Edmund Gosse’s biography of Henrik Ibsen, Suze van der Poll examines how far we can say that Gosse’s Father and Son functions as a source of inspiration for Henrik Ibsen. Looking more closely at the structural principles of the work and Gosse’s presentation of temperament and his use of narrative techniques, she demonstrates that the English biographer’s portrait not only shapes Ibsen as a canonical European author and citizen of the world, but at the same time reflects Gosse’s own development, as both human being and literary critic.