Bücher der Reihe Iris Murdoch Today

The novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch and the painter Harry Weinberger engaged in over twenty years of close friendship and intellectual discourse, centred on sustained discussion of the practice, teaching and morality of art. This book presents a reappraisal of Murdoch¿s novels ¿ chiefly, three mature novels, The Sea, The Sea (1978), Nuns and Soldiers (1980) and The Good Apprentice (1985), and two enigmatic late novels, The Green Knight (1993) and Jackson¿s Dilemma (1995) ¿ which are perceived through the prism of her discourse with Weinberger. It draws on a run of almost 400 letters from Murdoch to Weinberger, and on Murdoch¿s philosophical writings, Weinberger¿s private writings, the remarks of both artists in interviews, and other material relating to their views on art and art history, much of which is unpublished and has received no previous critical attention. Scrutiny of their shared values, methods and the imagistic dialogue that takesplace in their art provides original perspectives on Murdoch¿s creativity, and new ways of understanding her experimentation with the visual arts. This book offers a new line of enquiry into Murdoch's novels, and into the relationship between literature and the visual arts.

This volume is the third volume in Palgrave' Macmillan's new Iris Murdoch Today scholarly series.Iris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination is the first major collection of literary essays since her centenary in 2019. It brings together leading Murdoch scholars from across the world who expand the boundaries of recent criticism offering work not only on the novels, but on her unpublished poetry and archival materials. This collection discusses her interest in, and use of, Japanese literature; her relationship with, and reader-response to her, in Australia; Murdoch in the post #metoo era; her lifelong interest in the supernatural, same-sex relationships and friendships; as well as the use and abuse of biographical material. The collection widens the field of Murdoch studies and marks a new waypoint in the development of her critical reception.

This book explores Iris Murdoch as a philosopher who, through her distinctive methodology, exploits the advantages of having a mind on the borders of literature and politics in her early career writings (pre-The Sovereignty of Good). By focusing on a single decade of Murdoch¿s early career, Jamieson tracks connections between her views on the state of literature and politics in postwar Britain and her approach to the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Furthermore, this close study reveals that, far from a stylistic quirk, Murdoch¿s use of metaphors, analogies, and other literary devices is internal to her methodology. Finally, rather than asking what Murdoch¿s views are, this work will ask ¿what is Murdoch trying to achieve with her writings and public lectures, and how does she go about this?¿ By answering the latter question, we will have a new strategy for interpreting her writings more generally. The book contributes to the growing body of scholarship focusing on Iris Murdoch¿s philosophical writings, and on women in the history of analytic philosophy.

This exploration of the crucially important role played by remorse in Iris Murdoch¿s philosophical, theological, and political thinking identifies it as a critical concept in her moral psychology and a recurrent theme in her art. Through engagement with Simone Weil, current theories of remorse, trauma theory and Holocaust studies, it offers fresh perspectives on Murdoch¿s fiction ¿ particularly the late novels, her radio play The One Alone, and her monograph Heidegger.