Gosson

Gosson is an English surname. The name is primarily associated with Stephen Gosson (c. 1550–1624), a writer and pamphleteer of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Gosson is best known for The School of Abuse, published in 1579, a polemical tract attacking poets, playwrights, and actors and arguing that drama corrupts youth and undermines religious and moral order. The work is often cited as an early example of anti-theatrical criticism in England and helped shape contemporary debates about the social function of theatre and the responsibilities of artists.

Gosson wrote other works focused on education, morality, and the reform of public conduct, but none matched the impact of his early tract. Details of his life are relatively sparse, and the historical record provides limited information about his later years and career. The surname Gosson may appear in historical records with variant spellings such as Goson, reflecting common orthographic variation in early modern England.

In summary, Gosson refers mainly to the English writer Stephen Gosson, whose advocacy against drama left a lasting imprint on the history of literary and theatrical criticism. Other individuals bearing the surname are less prominently documented in surviving sources.