Introversion and extroversion in certain late Victorian writers
Abstract
This thesis deals with three writers, George Gissing, Edmund
Gosse and Robert Louis Stevenson. I use the words "introversion"
and "extroversion" partly in a geographical sense.
George Gissing, for example, in spite of Continental influences
remained a very English (in some ways almost insular)
novelist, and in that sense an introvert. Edmund Gosse, on the
other hand, was a very cosmopolitan critic although his style
was typically English. Robert Louis Stevenson provides a third
angle. Having been born in Edinburgh he was forced into exile
for most of his life, and obviously this had a great effect on
his writings. Of the three writers most weight is given to
Edmund Gosse.
In my analysis of George Gissing I concentrate on some of
his best known novels, The Unclassed, The Nether World, New
Grub Street and Born in Exile. The Emancipated and By the
Ionian Sea deal specifically with Italy. There are four
chapters on Edmund Gosse. The first concentrates on the early
part of his long career when his main interest was Scandinavian
literature. The next two chapters give an account of his impressions
of and writings on America and France. In the fourth
chapter on Edmund Gosse I concentrate on the part of his career
when he had become an established authority on his own country's
literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, too, is dealt with in
four chapters. First I write briefly about his Scottish works,
all inspired by his childhood and youth. Next I deal with his
two favourite countries, France and the United States, both
associated with his Wife, Fanny. The last chapter follows
Stevenson to the South Seas where he spent the last few years
of his life and wrote some of his best books.
The three writers are compared from time to time. Robert
Louis Stevenson and Edmund Gosse knew each other well;
George Gissing is the odd man out. But his reaction to foreign
influences differs from that of the other two and this makes a
comparison very interesting.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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