Iris Murdoch / Hilda D. Spear.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spear, Hilda D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Murdoch, Iris--Criticism and interpretation.

Murdoch, Iris.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

ix, 149 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Summary:

Iris Murdoch produced twenty-six novels in forty years. The last of these, Jackson's Dilemma, was published in 1995, four years before her death. Murdoch's interest in moral problems inclined her towards what could be seen as an unusual view of human character and human life, leading her to create bizarre situations and offer unsettling solutions which frequently challenge and intrigue the reader.

This essential introduction to one of Britain's best-known writers guides the reader through the full range of Murdoch's fictional output, tracing basic patterns which run throughout Murdoch's work and showing how the novels help to elucidate one another. The revised, updated and expanded new edition takes into account certain details which have emerged following Murdoch's death in 1999, incorporates the latest scholarship and offers fuller treatment of a number of novels.

The second edition gives more weight to the development of the moral discourse which is predominant in Murdoch's work. From the mid-sixties onwards, Murdoch was intensely concerned with the problems of Good and Evil in a godless would. In the later novels, particularly those of the 1980s and 1990s, she posited the possibility of mystic personalities who influence others from a position beyond the normal parameters of our world. Hilda D. Spear examines these mystic, and mysterious, fictions in the later chapters of her study, and argues that Jackson's Dilemma should be viewed as Murdoch's unfinished novel.'

Contents:

2 The Early Novels 20

Under the Net

The Flight from the Enchanter

The Sandcastle

The Bell

3 The Romantic Phase 37

A Severed Head

An Unofficial Rose

The Unicorn

The Italian Girl

The Red and the Green

4 Conflicts of Good and Evil 55

The Time of the Angels

The Nice and the Good

Bruno's Dream

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

An Accidental Man

5 Metaphors for Life 74

The Black Prince

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

A Word Child

Henry and Cato

6 The Mystic Novels 92

The Sea, The Sea

Nuns and Soldiers

The Philosopher's Pupil

The Good Apprentice

The Book and the Brotherhood

The Message to the Planet

7 Myth, Magic and Mystery 112

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals

The Green Knight

Jackson's Dilemma.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 140-146) and index.

ISBN:

9781403987099

9781403987105

OCLC:

70335485

Publisher Number:

9781403987099

9781403987105

Online:

Contributor biographical information

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