oii_image_credit
Iris Murdoch
-
Standard Name: Murdoch, Iris
Birth Name: Jean Iris Murdoch
Married Name: Jean Iris Bailey
IM
, active from the second world war till almost the end of the twentieth century, was best known as a philosophical novelist with a wild sense of comedy. Her twenty-six novels foreground philosophic issues similar to those discussed in her well-regarded academic publications. She contributed to many periodicals, and wrote plays for stage and radio, an opera libretto, and poetry.
Connections
| Connections Sort ascending | Author name | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Literary responses | Brigid Brophy | Seven years after its publication Iris Murdoch
named this novel to the Times Literary Supplement as deserving to be better known. Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins. 487n64 |
| Literary responses | Brigid Brophy | Reviewers were hard on this book (it made them nervous, wrote Iris Murdoch
). Murdoch responded by drafting a blurb: Miss Brophy has written an ambitious serious disturbing book. It is rich, original and witty... |
| Literary responses | Elizabeth Jane Howard | EJH
's stepson and fellow novelist Martin Amis
has written that Howard (with Iris Murdoch
) was the most interesting woman writer of her generation. Amis, Martin. Experience. Jonathan Cape. 215 |
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | The London theatre critics were scathing, with only two exceptions (though one of these, Harold Hobson
, carried a lot of weight). Pamela Hansford Johnson
trounced the play on the BBC
's radio programme The... |
| Literary responses | Brigid Brophy | One review was headed And Then There Were Fifty-One. Iris Murdoch
's low opinion caused a temporary rift in her friendship with the author. Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins. 488 |
| Literary responses | Marina Warner | Critics admired the novel for its skilled use of plot, characterisation, and lyrical descriptions. Some compared MW
to Iris Murdoch
. Moseley, Merritt, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 194. Gale Research. 194: 284 |
| Leisure and Society | Ivy Compton-Burnett | ICB
was scathing about the work of some younger novelists, like Iris Murdoch
and Muriel Spark
(though she took Murdoch more seriously than Spark). Liddell, Robert, and Francis King. Elizabeth and Ivy. Peter Owen. 86, 93-4 |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Sarah Waters | SW
puts in puts in something like a regular work day when writing, but keeps going to all hours when re-writing. Despite her success, she still finds the process largely torture. And yet [s]tarting... |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Penelope Lively | As controversy has been Henry's domain, reading has been Charlotte's. For ever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. Reading has taught her how sex... |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Christine Brooke-Rose | This novel uses medieval allegory to resolve the linguistic, psychological, and intellectual fragmentation of its heroine, Julia. Birch, Sarah. Christine Brooke-Rose and Contemporary Fiction. Clarendon Press. 25 |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Simone de Beauvoir | SB
's many honours during her lifetime included the Sonning Prize for European Culture in 1983, and an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University
. There is a Simone de Beauvoir Institute
at Concordia University
in... |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Samuel Beckett | Dylan Thomas
called this novel Freud
ian blarney: Sodom and Begorrah. Parker, Peter, editor. The Reader’s Companion to Twentieth-Century Writers. Fourth Estate and Helicon. 59 Federman, Raymond, and John Fletcher. Samuel Beckett. University of California Press. 21 |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Julian of Norwich | T. S. Eliot
used Julian's words and concepts for the final lines of Little Gidding. Iris Murdoch
claimed her as an influence. She is the subject of a video by Films for the Humanities and Sciences |
| Instructor | Jennifer Dawson | Sent to study political theory for one term with Iris Murdoch
, she spent a whole year studying philosophy under her tuition. She later wrote that Murdoch showed me the springs to drink from. Dawson, Jennifer. “Impressions of Iris Murdoch, Teacher, in 1951”. The Ship, Vol. 91 , pp. 52-3. 52 |
| Friends, Associates | Harriet Shaw Weaver | Working in the left-wing bookshop early in her time at Oxford, HSW
became acquainted with Iris Murdoch
, who was then an undergraduate at Somerville College
and who frequented the shop. Weaver was finishing... |
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
No bibliographical results available.