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 | Author name Sort descending | Excerpt |
---|---|---|
Reception | Barbara Pym | Pym is not one of those women writers whose stock has risen through feminist re-evaluation. Five years after the influential Times Literary Supplement article was published, Penelope Lively
wrote, I am always surprised that the... |
Reception | Kathleen Raine | KR
declined the invitation of the Royal Society of Literature
to become a Companion of Literature, saying the companionship had been cheapened by its award to the journalistsIris Murdoch
and Anthony Burgess
. Watts, Janet. “Kathleen Raine”. The Guardian, 8 July 2003, p. 25. 25 |
Reception | Kathleen Raine | Iris Murdoch
bought this book as a present for her mentor Donald MacKinnon
. Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins, 2002. 258 |
Family and Intimate relationships | Bernice Rubens | Peter Conradi
(biographer of Iris Murdoch
) writes that BR
had an affair with an American, Allan Forbes
(partly influenced by the philosopher and family friend Elias Canetti
, who arranged for her and Forbes... |
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... |
Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Alison Uttley | Among later literary judgements, she pronounced Iris Murdoch
's The Bell (published in November 1958) brilliant . . . the characterisation, presentation, perfectation. But too much homosexuality. qtd. in Judd, Denis. Alison Uttley. Michael Joseph, 1986. 212 |
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, 1998. 194: 284 |
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... |
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... |
Reception | Mary Wesley | James Hale
, who had liked her first novel, said that this one stepped forward, in literary terns, roughly a mile from there. I haven't enjoyed reading a novel so much in years. Its line... |
Occupation | Rebecca West | The prize went to P. H. Newby
's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others... |
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
No bibliographical results available.