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Naseri, Sis Farzaneh. "Iris Murdoch." Phd thesis, METU, 2009. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12610506/index.pdf.
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Murdoch&rsquos fiction has been influenced by dramatic elements, particularly comic elements. This influence has been revealed as parody. Murdoch parodies the comic character types of the eiron, alazon, buffoon and agroikos by exaggerating and mixing their functions and themes of love, separated lovers and metamorphosis in her novels, The Nice and the Good, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea. In addition, she makes parodic uses of Shakespearean plays, As You Like It and Love'
s Labour'
s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest, in her novels in question. Her use of parody as a weapon against the genre of romantic comedy, its character types and main themes is the result of her philosophical view of drama and the dramatic. She argues that comedy and tragedy deal with appearance whereas drama and the dramatic ought to involve reality. In her novels in question, she shows that the dramatic is the conflict of selfish self with itself to reach self-knowledge. Murdochian self- knowledge is the knowledge of what lies beyond self. This kind of knowledge is achieved by unselfing, a process through which a solipsistic self recognizes its solipsism and challenges it by means of love and art.
2
Conlin, Alice. "Iris Murdoch on knowledge and freedom." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79833.
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In chapter one, I describe the different conceptions of self that Murdoch and Nussbaum have, and I show how these affect their depictions of human good. And I relate how each one defends the internal logic of her claims against the critique of moral relativism. I examine Iris Murdoch's conception of reality and consciousness in the distinctive way that she fuses them to a transcendent morality.In chapter two, I turn to Murdoch's description of the journey from illusion to reality and the role of love or eros in this journey. I examine the many points of intersection between her description of the escape from selfishness and Wendy Farley's (1996) theory of how we acknowledge the other through a type of attention that she calls eros for the other .
In Chapter three, I discuss the problem that evil poses for Murdoch's moral philosophy, and how Murdoch and Farley interpret the experience of the void as yearning for relation. In the conclusion of this thesis, I present Murdoch's views on form as the consolation of human yearning. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
3
O'Connor, Patricia Jo. "The moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.253061.
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Campanile, Rosa <1993>. "Etica e letteratura in Iris Murdoch." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/16288.
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Il progetto filosofico e letterario di Iris Murdoch è al centro di questa analisi che vuole ricostruire una particolare concezione dell’etica definita dall’esplorazione immaginativa della vita morale. L’intento è quello di discutere da un punto di vista storico-critico una particolare immagine dell'etica concepita come riflessione sui concetti che configurano le nostre vite: nel pensiero di Murdoch l'etica è uno strumento di comprensione del mondo. La sfera dell’esperienza personale, nelle forme esplicitate dall’etica e dalla letteratura, insiste sul carattere individuale della trasformazione del soggetto. Questo lavoro cerca di indagare alcuni aspetti di una prospettiva etica che è stata definita un’etica della visione: Murdoch è interessata al difficile processo di riconquista della realtà esterna attraverso la comprensione letteraria dell’esistenza degli altri e delle cose.
5
Bernas-Martel, Claire. "La vérité dans l'oeuvre de Iris Murdoch." Paris 10, 1993. http://www.theses.fr/1993PA100064.
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Iris Murdoch présente dans ses romans un univers complexe où règnent illusions, faux-semblants, fausses vérités, vrais mensonges, merveilleux et parfois surnaturel. C'est précisément ce qui incite à étudier le thème de la vérité à travers six romans de l'auteur: Under the Net, The Sea, the Sea, The Philsopher's Pupil, The Good Apprentice, The Unicorn, The Flight From the Enchanter. En effet, cette variété de non-vérités renvoie à différents types de vérités et au concept de vérité lui-même. Il s'agit dans ce travail de déterminer si, pour I. Murdoch, le sujet peut ou non atteindre une quelconque vérité à propos du réel, de lui-même et des autres, quelle vérité il peut atteindre et par quels moyens. Ceci conduit à étudier la nature particulière du réel murdochien (ses liens avec l'imaginaire, le rêve, les fantasmes), puis la nature du sujet et son rôle dans l'accès à la vérité. Enfin, se dégage la vérité de l'auteur: sa conception de la nature et de la condition humaine, de la vérité en général, où la morale et l'art jouent un rôle fondamentalIris Murdoch's novels are the realm of illusions, delusion, real lies, pseudo-truths and even supernatural events. All these elements point to the concept of truth which is precisely the object of our study in six of her novels: Under the Net, The Sea, the Sea, The Philosopher's Pupil, The Good Apprentice, The Unicorn, The Flight From the Enchanter. The problem one is confronted with is whether, in I. Murdoch's view, the subject can know the truth concerning reality, himself, others, or not, to which extent, what truth he may achieve and how. This implies studying the particular nature of reality in the novels (its close link with dreams, imagination and fantasies), then the subjective and colouring nature of the subject and the part it plays in the access to truth. There also arises the question of the author's truth: her conception of human nature and human condition, her general conception of truth, where morals and art have a deep part
6
Boldrini, Miranda. "Éthique, imagination et réalité chez Iris Murdoch." Thesis, Amiens, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019AMIE0039.
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La thèse porte sur la pensée morale d'Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). Notre recherche vise, tout d'abord, à montrer le rôle hétérogène et novateur de Murdoch au sein de la philosophie morale du Vingtième siècle, en particulier dans la tradition philosophique analytique, un rôle qui reste aujourd'hui encore négligé. Nous examinons la perspective philosophique de Murdoch autour de trois axes principaux : le rapport entre éthique et langage ; la psychologie morale ; la relation entre méthode philosophique et normativité. Ainsi, nous montrons l'apport de la pensée de Murdoch sur des questions qui demeurent au cœur de débats majeurs de l'éthique philosophique contemporaine, en particulier : la critique de la dichotomie fait-valeur ; le perfectionnisme moral ; la critique du "scientisme" et le genre de naturalisme non-scientifique que Murdoch envisage pour l'éthique. Par cette analyse, à la fois théorique et historique, nous soutenons que Murdoch a joué un rôle fondamental dans la constitution de ce qu'on interprète aujourd’hui comme un courant alternatif de l'éthique analytique : une "philosophie de l'ordinaire" dont Wittgenstein représente la figure fondatrice, qui considère la réflexion philosophique comme un travail d'élucidation conceptuelle intéressée à la vie morale ordinaire. Dans cette perspective, nous mettons en relation la pensée de Murdoch avec le prisme actuel de l'éthique du care et d'approches féministes intéressées par l'épistémologie morale, afin de montrer que Murdoch offre une "épistémologie morale différente" pour l'éthiqueThe thesis focuses on Iris Murdoch's (1919-1999) moral thought. The research aims to show Murdoch's heterogenic and innovator role within contemporary moral philosophy, in particular in the analytic tradition. Murdoch's philosophical perspective is analyzed in three axes : the relationship between ethics and language ; moral psychology ; the relationship between philosophical method and normativity. The thesis shows Murdoch's contribution to some central debates of contemporary philosophical ethics, notably : the critic of the dichotomy between fact and value ; moral perfectionism ; and the critic of "scientism" and the kind of non-scientific naturalism Murdoch conceive for ethics. Through this analysis, both theoretical and historical, the research argues that Murdoch played a crucial role in the constitution of an alternative line of analytic moral philosophy : a "philosophy of the ordinary" inheriting from Wittgenstein, which consider philosophical reflection as conceptual elucidation interested in ordinary moral life. In this perspective, the thesis explores the relationship between Murdoch's moral thought and contemporary ethics of care along with feminist approaches interested in moral epistemology, in order to show that what Murdoch offers for ethics is a "different moral epistemology"
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La, Cassagnère Mathilde. "La vision dans l'univers romanesque d'Iris Murdoch /." Lille : Atenier national de reproduction des thèses, 1999. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb38987578p.
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Robjant, David. "The river as a guide to Iris Murdoch." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683256.
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Sulcas, Roslyn Lee. "Narrative techniques in the novels of Iris Murdoch." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21881.
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Bibliography: pages 154-163.In this thesis I have departed from the prevalent critical concentration on the affiliations between Murdoch's fiction and philosophy, and have attempted to explore the relationship between her narrative techniques and the conventions of realism. In doing so, I use the narrative theory of Dorrit Cohn, who proposes that novelists concerned to render a sense of "reality" are also those who construct the most elaborate and artificial fictive worlds and characters. I propose that Murdoch's "real-isation" of her fictional world incorporates the problems of access to, and representation of the real. This links her to two ostensibly antithetical traditions: that of British realism (within which she would place herself), and also a fictional mode consonant with the poststructuralist writing that focuses on such problems. An examination of the early novels in terms of the correlation between "realism" and technical sophistication implied by Cohn reveals a division of narrative purpose that Murdoch has herself described in the early part of her career as an alternation between "open" and "closed" novels. I suggest in the thesis that these two fictional modes are deliberate choices of style on Murdoch's part, rather than a "failed" realism, and that their different readerly rewards are compounded by the successful merging of these competing .views of the real in the later novels. My narratological emphasis in this dissertation indicates also the ways in which Murdoch's fiction incorporates the comedic, the romantic and the gothic into a framework of orthodox verisimilitude, utilising the clashes between these genres to foreground the difficulties of a unified view. This is particularly successful in the first-person novels, where the overt problematising of self-representation paradoxically feeds into our sense of their "realism".
10
Ianuskiewtz, Ana Paula Dias [UNESP]. "Arte e ética em The Bell de Iris Murdoch." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91526.
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Iris Murdoch é uma figura dominante na literatura britânica do pós-guerra e também, uma filósofa notável que constantemente denunciou o interesse excessivo da filosofia moral moderna pelos temas da vontade, da deliberação e ação. Para ela, o estudo da ética deveria ter como prioridade o desenvolvimento da percepção estética, a atenção à realidade e, principalmente, a intensa apreensão de outros indivíduos. Murdoch considera a apreciação da beleza na arte e na natureza, não apenas como um exercício espiritual mas também, como uma maneira para alcançar a bondade, evitar o egocentrismo e ganhar o progresso moral. Seus romances são centrados na arte e no amor, pois Murdoch afirma que a boa arte e o amor intenso são intimações da verdade que levam o indivíduo ao aprimoramento moral. The Bell, seu romance publicado em 1958, descreve uma comunidade religiosa anglicana e os vários incidentes decorrentes da substituição do antigo sino da catedral. Esses eventos incitam reflexões em relação a várias questões morais, como por exemplo: a influência da religião e das instituições de poder na conduta moral; o modo de suplantar interesses próprios e o egoísmo em benefício do próximo, o papel das mulheres na sociedade e a maneira pela qual a sociedade é injusta e intolerante com aqueles cuja sexualidade difere da maioria. Assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar como certas questões da filosofia moral de Murdoch estão apresentadas nesse romance, The Bell, por meio da expressão literária, mostrando que a arte literária e visual estão amplamente relacionadas à sua teoria moral.
Iris Murdoch is a dominant figure of postwar British literature and also a remarkable philosopher who constantly denounced the excessive interest of modern moral philosophy in the themes of will, deliberation and action. According to her, the study of ethics should prioritize the development of aesthetic perception, the attention towards reality and mainly, the intense apprehension of other individuals. Murdoch considers the appreciation of beauty in arts and nature not only as a spiritual exercise but also, as a way to reach goodness, to avoid egocentrism and to gain moral improvement. Her novels are centered on art and love because she considers that great art or intense love can give intimations of truth, and move one towards moral perfection. The Bell, her novel published in 1958, describes an Anglican religious community and the incidents that happened due to the replacement of the old bell of the cathedral. These events incite moral reflections such as: the influence of religion and of the institutions of power in moral conduct; the way to supplant egoism for the benefit of others, the role of women in society and the ways society is unfair and intolerant of those whose sexuality differs from the majority. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse in which ways some issues of Iris Murdoch moral philosophy are presented in The Bell, by means of the literary expression showing that the literary and the visual arts are closely related to ethics in her moral theory.
11
Ianuskiewtz, Ana Paula Dias. "Arte e ética em The Bell de Iris Murdoch /." Araraquara : [s.n.], 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91526.
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Orientador: Maria Clara Bonetti ParoBanca: Maria das Graças Gomes Villa
Banca: Alzira Leite Vieira Allegro
Resumo: Iris Murdoch é uma figura dominante na literatura britânica do pós-guerra e também, uma filósofa notável que constantemente denunciou o interesse excessivo da filosofia moral moderna pelos temas da vontade, da deliberação e ação. Para ela, o estudo da ética deveria ter como prioridade o desenvolvimento da percepção estética, a atenção à realidade e, principalmente, a intensa apreensão de outros indivíduos. Murdoch considera a apreciação da beleza na arte e na natureza, não apenas como um exercício espiritual mas também, como uma maneira para alcançar a bondade, evitar o egocentrismo e ganhar o progresso moral. Seus romances são centrados na arte e no amor, pois Murdoch afirma que a boa arte e o amor intenso são intimações da verdade que levam o indivíduo ao aprimoramento moral. The Bell, seu romance publicado em 1958, descreve uma comunidade religiosa anglicana e os vários incidentes decorrentes da substituição do antigo sino da catedral. Esses eventos incitam reflexões em relação a várias questões morais, como por exemplo: a influência da religião e das instituições de poder na conduta moral; o modo de suplantar interesses próprios e o egoísmo em benefício do próximo, o papel das mulheres na sociedade e a maneira pela qual a sociedade é injusta e intolerante com aqueles cuja sexualidade difere da maioria. Assim, o objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar como certas questões da filosofia moral de Murdoch estão apresentadas nesse romance, The Bell, por meio da expressão literária, mostrando que a arte literária e visual estão amplamente relacionadas à sua teoria moral.
Abstract: Iris Murdoch is a dominant figure of postwar British literature and also a remarkable philosopher who constantly denounced the excessive interest of modern moral philosophy in the themes of will, deliberation and action. According to her, the study of ethics should prioritize the development of aesthetic perception, the attention towards reality and mainly, the intense apprehension of other individuals. Murdoch considers the appreciation of beauty in arts and nature not only as a spiritual exercise but also, as a way to reach goodness, to avoid egocentrism and to gain moral improvement. Her novels are centered on art and love because she considers that great art or intense love can give intimations of truth, and move one towards moral perfection. The Bell, her novel published in 1958, describes an Anglican religious community and the incidents that happened due to the replacement of the old bell of the cathedral. These events incite moral reflections such as: the influence of religion and of the institutions of power in moral conduct; the way to supplant egoism for the benefit of others, the role of women in society and the ways society is unfair and intolerant of those whose sexuality differs from the majority. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse in which ways some issues of Iris Murdoch moral philosophy are presented in The Bell, by means of the literary expression showing that the literary and the visual arts are closely related to ethics in her moral theory.
Mestre
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Ariturk, Nur Nilgun. "An Iris in the sun : perception-reception-perception in Iris Murdoch's novels of the good." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/1970.
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Murdoch considers herself a 'Christian fellow-traveller', 'a kind of Platonist' and a 'sort of Buddhist', all of which summarise her spirit of writing very well. Iris Murdoch places a very serious obligation on the artist to present reality to his/her observers/readers. In almost all her philosophical articles, books, and interviews, she expresses with great emphasis the task of art, especially prose literature, as a form of education for moral development. In that sense, we can call her a moralist and a 'philosophical' novelist. With her 'Novels of the Good' Iris Murdoch is inviting the reader for a 'journey into the iris', saying: 'I am the Iris; come into me and see. ' The message of her novels is not of 'philosophy' but of everyday moral reality. In other words, reading Murdochian novels is reading morals. This is the main argument in this study. The moral education (preception) of the reader by Iris Murdoch is to 'realise' (receive) the 'perception' of the other--hence the title of the thesis--through her 'novels of character'. For Murdoch, appreciating a work of art is no different than knowing another person(s). The good artist and the good person have, in that respect, the same moral discipline. And this disciplined attention brings with it the true perception and clarity and morally right behaviour. The reader has to attend with moral responsibility to the work of art because it is through literature that s/he can enlarge his/her vision and inner space. The thesis is divided into two main sections: the moral precepts and their exemplification as concrete everyday examples in her novels themselves. The Introduction provides the 'philosophical' and theoretical background for Murdoch's 'Novels of the Good'. Included here is a dictionary of some of the major 'concepts', or rather 'precepts' that Murdoch uses both in her novels and her philosophical articles and books, in order to train her reader to gain ethical vision. Also included in this chapter is a section on reading and readers through structuralist and reader-oriented theories in contrast to or comparison with Murdoch's conception/perception of the 'reader' in her novels. Chapter I switches on the 'machine', Murdoch's &camera-eye' on the egoistic human 'psyche', which Murdoch likens to a machine. Chapter 11 discusses this 'machine' in close-up, that is through first-person narrative novels. Chapter 111, which includes novels that have philosophers at the centre, throws a 'light' on philosophy and everyday reality. Chapter IV explores the importance of death in everyday life. However, although the chapters are divided under different titles, the novels discussed in each chapter can be related to the rest as Murdoch discusses the same precepts recurrently in different contexts which gives her novels the 'serial' characteristic. Each novel is part of the reader's pilgrimage to the Good to understand his/her limitations in the face of the contingent reality represented in her fiction through free individual characters. To enter the Murdochland is to enter the cycle of 'arriving at not arriving'.
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Lazaro, Ann. "Le narrateur masculin dans l'oeuvre d'Iris Murdoch." Grenoble 3, 1991. http://www.theses.fr/1991GRE39030.
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Entre 1954 et 1989, iris murdoch a ecrit vingt-quatre romans, dont sept qui sont presentes du point de vue d'un narrateur masculin. Ce choix d'un narrateur masculin semble interessant et inhabituel pour un auteur femme et merite d'etre etudie. Dans la premiere partie de la these, chaque roman ecrit a la premiere personne est examine en detail afin de degager la personnalite de chaque narrateur et de suivre une eventuelle evolution dans le traitement qu'accorde murdoch a ses narrateurs. Cette approche chronologique est suivie de trois chapitres plus techniques sur la presentation du narrateur en tant qu'auteur de son histoire et sur l'art narratif chez murdoch. La deuxieme partie traite plus particulierement certains themes chers a murdoch, comme la religion la responsabilite individuelle ou la famille. Le dernier chapitre pose la question essentielle : pourquoi un narrateur masculin ? par un examen des reponses donnees par murdoch elle-meme, nous essayons d'y apporter une reponseOf the twenty-four novels written by iris murdoch between 1954 and 1989, seven are presented bu a male narrator. The choice of a male narrator can be considered an interesting one for a woman writer and needs to be examined. In the first part of the thesis, each novel with a male narrator is studied in detail in order to trace the development of this phenomenon throughout murdoch's writing career, and to show clearly both the individual personality of each narrator and his affinities with those who precede or follow him chronologically. The problem of the narrating consciousness is also examined, along with some technique of presentation. In the second part of the thesis, certain themes recurring in murdoch's work are examined in the light of the preceding study of narrator personality;a close examination of religious aspirations, individual responsibility and relations with family and friends leads up to a final chapter which asks the vital question : why a male narrator? murdoch's own partial answers are given, and other explanations are provided
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Perry, Sarah. "Confusion : Iris Murdoch, the gothic and the sense of place." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.588502.
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This thesis comprises my novel Confusion together with a critical piece exploring depictions and uses of the sense of place - in particular architecture and the built environment - in the Gothic, and in the Gothic legacy in contemporary fiction. I have chosen to focus on two key Gothic texts and two novels by Iris Murdoch. My novel Confusion depicts a man's entry into a house in which the inhabitants are each struggling with distinct and 'confusing' moral, sexual, spiritual and emotional problems. John Co le is at first only able to understand the situation in which he finds himself by 'reading' his life - and that of others - as a kind of fiction. The novel's use of third person narration interspersed with diary entries permits an exploration of the distance between John's perception of events (in his role as 'reader') and the events themselves, and the inevitable narrowing of that distance as he enters the 'text' he is at first content merely to 'read'. The novel places particular emphasis on the sense of place evoked through John's perception of what he sees, and, though intended as realist fiction, draws on Gothic motifs of ruin, madness and transgression. The critical component of the thesis sets Confusion within the context of essentially realist contemporary novels which nonetheless appear to exploit Gothic narrative protocols, focusing particularly on the treatment of place in the novels of Iris Murdoch. The Introduction explores the origins of the Gothic, the crucial importance of the sense of place as a Gothic device, and the extent to which realist fiction may make use of Gothic protocols. It emphasises the importance of consciousness - both of character and reader - to the construction and perception of the sense of place.
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Grimshaw, Tammy J. "Gender, sexuality and power in the novels of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.406279.
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Reid, Diana. "Iris Murdoch on the role of Art in Moral Perception." Thesis, Department of Philosophy, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/18825.
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First lines of the Introduction (as abstract not provided): Throughout her work, Iris Murdoch often touches on the intersection between ethics and aesthetics, in particular focussing on art’s role in moral perception. As a novelist and philosopher, Murdoch asks, “What is a good man like? How can we make ourselves morally better?”1 While she looks to aesthetics to address each of these questions, the literature to date has overwhelmingly focussed on the latter. Murdoch does not limit herself to the question of whether art can make us “morally better”. She also asks how art can help us understand what it is to be moral. The literature on Murdoch concerned exclusively with the intersection of aesthetics and ethics is limited. Moreover, within this literature, there is little debate about the role that art plays in moral perception. The dominant reading is that art is a vehicle through which we can achieve moral perception. On this view, critics including Anil Gomes and Elizabeth Burns argue that art, under certain conditions, can serve a practical purpose by allowing us to perceive of its subject matter morally. Therefore, looking at art can in some circumstances allow us to actually experience moral perception. Discussions here have in particular tended towards Murdoch’s role in “philosophy’s turn to literature”.2 While I do not dispute that this is a legitimate reading of Murdoch’s aesthetics, my concern is that it is not exhaustive. Rather, Murdoch’s account of the role of art in moral perception is more complex. Murdoch also argues that art plays a useful explanatory role insofar as aesthetic and moral perceptions are analogous. That is, in identifying the similarities between aesthetic and moral perception, we can come to a better understanding of what moral perception is.
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Larson, Kate. ""Everything important is to do with passion" : Iris Murdoch's concept of love and its Platonic origin /." Uppsala : Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-9532.
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Olsson, Anna-Lova. "Strävan mot unselfing : en pedagogisk studie av bildningstanken hos Iris Murdoch." Doctoral thesis, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-45716.
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This dissertation is a study in philosophy of education and focuses on the moral dimensions of an individual’s formation, and on how reading fictional literature can contribute to the process of formation. The point of departure is the notion that education contains – or should contain – moral dimensions and thus contributes to the formation of individual life and a life shared with others. The study revolves around the philosophical works of Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) and what she calls “moral transformation” - a task and a striving towards realism and unselfishness. The study is concluded by a discussion of how Murdoch’s thinking contributes to the understanding of formation within philosophy of education. It is argued that Murdoch’s ideas about moral transformation can be summarised in four theses and that these show that transformation is a process of profound individual change. The theses are in short: 1) imagination supports moral transformation by allowing the individual to understand the world in a more realistic way, 2) attention supports transformation by directing the individual towards the good, 3) unselfing is a moral state of consciousness and a transformative process that leads towards unselfishness. The ego is subdued and the individual opens up to the influence of his or her surroundings, 4) reading fictional literature supports the moral transformation of the individual if the text has a quality of imagination. The study shows that Murdoch’s work can make an important contribution to the understanding of formation within the philosophy of education: With the idea of moral transformation as a point of departure the study develops questions of the individual’s formation by highlighting individuality and imagination. Moral transformation means gaining a deeper presence in one’s relationships, and it is a continuous process of discovering the world that the individual needs to endeavour to maintain. It is a striving towards unselfing.
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La, Cassagnère Mathilde. "La vision dans l'univers romanesque d'Iris Murdoch." Paris 4, 1997. http://www.theses.fr/1997PA040130.
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Cette étude est consacrée au voyage et aux péripéties de "l'œil" ou du "regard" murdochien (manifestation de l'artiste aussi bien que du narrateur et du personnage) à la conquête de la "vision" originelle, "graal" dont l'obtention est censée mettre fin à ses pathologies et égarements. Le lecteur est quant à lui irrésistiblement enrôlé dans le parcours agité du regard vers l'objet de sa quête, l'activité de lecture se dévoilant par là-même comme l'un des aspects essentiels de la vision murdochienne. A mesure que se dessine la trajectoire mouvementée de l'œil vers son but, l'œuvre romanesque révèle ses "avenues de rêve" (pour reprendre l'expression de Bachelard) […]This study focuses on the eventful journey of the murdochian "eye" that of the artist as well as of the narrator and characters) in its quest for a primal mode of "vision" a "grail" which could put an end to its pathologies and distractions. The reader himself cannot but get involved in the eye's voyage towards the object of its desire, so that the act of reading is revealed as a major aspect of vision in Murdoch’s work. As the eye progresses on its turbulent way, "avenues de rêve" let us suggest, as an equivalent of Bachelard's expression "the dream avenues of the unconscious" open in the depths of the novels, letting us peep at secret places of pleasure and anxiety, and discover the unexpected cosmogony of iris Murdoch’s universe
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White, Frances Clare Patricia. "'Past forgiving?' : the experience of remorse in the writings of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, Kingston University, 2010. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/20274/.
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This thesis identifies the concept of remorse as critically significant in Iris Murdoch's moral psychology and art. It analyses the function of remorse as the counterpoint to love, which Murdoch defines as attention to the reality of the other, and demonstrates the potential remorse to induce 'unselfing' which leads to the Good. Close readings of selected texts which manifest Murdoch's developing concern with remorse engage in dialogues with simone Weil's analysis of affliction and with contemporary philosophical, theological and psychological theories of remorse. These dialogues, which differentiate chronic and lucid forms of remorse, establish Murdoch's innovative contribution to what is herein identified as emerging field of remorse studies. The study begins by demonstrating Murdoch's releance to current philosophical debate on remorse with reference to The Nice and the and The Philosopher's Pupil. It proceeds to explore how her 'neo-theology' links remorse with the concepts of repentance and forgiveness, discussed with reference to A Wordand The Book and the Brotherhood. A discussion of contemporary discourses of trauma theory and 'primal wounding' follows, which classifies The Good Apprentice as her Ur-text on lucid remorse, explores how The Green Knight engages with the concomitant issue of remorse, and contends that Murdoch's work warrants inclusion within the genre of trauma fiction. An investigation into Murdoch's parallel concern with Holocaust narratives and Heidegger's lack of remorse in The Message to the Planet, Jackson's Dilemma and Heidegger: The Pursuit of Being (her unpublished manuscript) follows, which relates herto current Holocaust theory and argues that her fiction merits inclusion within the 'third category' of Holocaust literature. Finally, biographical factors in Murdoch's increasing stress remorse and her mystical presentation of remorse in The One Alone endorse the importance remorse accrues in her moral vision and substantiate the claim that remorse acts ethical index in Murdoch's philosophy, while her fictional dramatisations of remorse invite an ethical response from readers and offer a form of bibliotherapy for the commonwoe of remorse.
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Osborn, Pamela. "Another country : bereavement, mourning and survival in the novels of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, Kingston University, 2013. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/26729/.
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This thesis identifies the expression of mourning and the status of outliving, or surviving the dead, as critically significant in Iris Murdoch’s novels. It analyses Murdoch’s use of post-structuralist techniques in the writing of mourning and assesses the ethical problems associated with survival, the inability to mourn, and biographical responses to Murdoch’s own death. Close readings of selected texts which demonstrate Murdoch’s developing concern with mourning engage in dialogues with Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida’s ideas about mourning, Elias Canetti’s concept of survival and contemporary philosophical, theological and psychological theories of mourning. These dialogues, which identify mourning in Murdoch’s work as particularly complex and ambiguous, establish Murdoch’s innovative contribution to mourning studies, which has until recently been dominated by Freud’s definitions.The study begins by demonstratingMurdoch’s relevance to psycho-analytical and current philosophical debate on mourning with reference to The Sea, The Sea, ThePhilosopher’s Pupil and Jackson’s Dilemma. It classifies The Sea, The Sea as Murdoch’s major mourning text, which contradicts prevailing Freudian theory about mourning and distinguishes Murdoch’s method of incorporating mourning into her work as deconstructionist. It proceeds to explore how her approach to survival develops a dialogue begun with Elias Canetti in the early 1950s which conflicts with her apparent support for his work. An analysis of ‘survivor guilt’ in The Message to the Planet forms part of Murdoch’s response to the Holocaustand relates her work to current trauma and Holocaust theory. An investigation into Murdoch’s demonic characters in An Unofficial Rose, The Time of the Angels and A Fairly Honourable Defeat follows, whichidentifiesthe inability to mourn as a significant barrier to goodness. In addition an enquiry into the cultural distaste for mourning and mourners in the mid-twentieth century reveals Murdoch to be writing against a background in which the mourner is overlooked and even ostracised. Finally, the ways in which life writing about Murdoch since her death both constitutes and describes mourning for her are considered. This study concludes by contending that biographical responses to Murdoch’s death both engage with and contradict accepted mourning theory in ways that were anticipated in Murdoch’s own fiction.
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Servant, Barbara. "Légèreté pensive et énergie romanesque : Italo Calvino, Iris Murdoch et Raymond Queneau." Thesis, Rennes 2, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019REN20045.
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La « légèreté pensive » est une expression employée par Italo Calvino dans l’une de ses conférences des Lezioni americane pour définir un principe fondamental de l’écriture. Distinguée des notions de divertissement et de frivolité, selon l'auteur la légèreté pensive n’est en aucun cas passive, mais au contraire active, dense, et concise. Surtout, elle est indissociable d’une capacité à mettre le regard en mouvement et doit ainsi permettre de traduire le réel dans toute sa complexité et son énergie. Cette thèse propose alors d’étudier la façon dont la légèreté contribue chez Calvino ainsi que deux écrivains majeurs de la littérature européenne du siècle dernier – Raymond Queneau et Iris Murdoch – au projet commun de faire du roman une encyclopédie « ouverte » qui se caractérise par un engagement éthique : dire le monde sans l’enfermer sous une grille de lecture univoque ou dans un égo narcissique. À la fois essayistes et romanciers, ces trois auteurs n’ont de cesse de théoriser leur propre pratique tout en cherchant à maintenir vis-à-vis de celle-ci une distance critique. La légèreté pensive induit alors ce que l’on pourrait appeler une « énergie romanesque ». Définie comme une force en acte, l’énergie caractérise ici l’intensité du texte, sa vitalité, et la capacité du roman à appréhender et à faire appréhender au lecteur différemment le monde. Ainsi couplées, « légèreté pensive » et « énergie romanesque » permettent d’éclairer la facture des œuvres tout en soulevant des enjeux tout à la fois poétiques et philosophiques"Thoughtful lightness" is an expression used by Italo Calvino in one of his Lezioni americane conferences in order to define a fundamental writing principle. Distinguished from entertainment and frivolity, according to the author, thoughtful lightness is by no means passive, but on the contrary active, dense, and concise. Above all, it is indistinguishable from an ability to set the gaze in motion and must thus make it possible to translate the reality in all its complexity and energy. This dissertation then proposes to study how lightness contributes to the common project of Calvino and two major writers of European literature of the last century - Raymond Queneau and Iris Murdoch - of making the novel an "open" encyclopaedia, characterized by an ethical commitment: to say the world without confining it with a univocal reading grid or within a narcissistic ego. At the same time essayists and novelists, these three authors constantly theorize their own practice while seeking to maintain a critical distance from it. The thoughtful lightness then induces what could be called a "narrative energy". Defined as an active force, energy here characterizes the intensity of the text, its vitality, and the novel's ability to apprehend and make the reader apprehend the world differently. Thus coupled, "thoughtful lightness" and "fictional energy" make it possible to shed light on the way the works are made, while at the same time raising both poetic and philosophical issues
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Lubitz, Joseph B. "Anxious Seas: Reading Affect in Dazai and Murdoch." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1451406893.
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Cooper, Richard. "The languages of philosophy, religion, and art in the writings of Iris Murdoch /." Thesis, McGill University, 1987. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=72105.
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This thesis develops a complex theoretical model for conceptualizing the relationships among philosophy, religion, and art and, then, examines the philosophical writings and the novels of Iris Murdoch from this perspective. The theoretical model in its most general form is based on the premiss that philosophy, religion, and art can be thought of as conventionally defined linguistic fields analogous to Wittgensteinian language-games. Relations among the linguistic fields are, in turn, analysed as exclusive ("Disparate" Model), inclusive ("Reductionist" Model), or interactional ("Dialectical" and "Tensional" Models), the latter pair being most appropriate for figurative language, the former pair for non-figurative language. The Dialectical and Tensional Models are assimilated, respectively, to Roman Jakobson's theory of metaphor and metonymy as the fundamental poles of language. Emphasis falls upon the continuum between the dialectical-metaphoric and the tensional-metonymic poles as the area in which creative, imaginative activities, such as the writing of novels or deliberation upon ethical problems, takes place. Iris Murdoch's theories of "crystalline" and "journalistic," "open" and "closed" novels and the related ways of thinking are coordinated with this continuum as a paradigm. Moreover, a creative tension is revealed in her philosophical writings between a resisted impetus towards totalizing explanations and the experience of the inherent contingency of philosophical thought. Thus, there is in Murdoch's philosophy, as in her creative prose, an exploration of the dynamics between the dialectical-metaphoric pole of thought and language and the tensional-metonymic pole, with an increasing, though never finally realized tendency towards the tensional-metonymic pole. Detailed analyses of Murdoch's aesthetic and ethical thought and of a wide selection of her novels illustrate this thesis.
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Altorf, Marije. "Iris Murdoch and the art of imagination : imaginative philosophy as response to secularism." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2004. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1677/.
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This dissertation examines the work of the British philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. A centre concern of this work is a question Murdoch poses more than once: ‘How can we make ourselves morally better?” This question is understood to initiate a form of philosophy which is critical of much of its tradition and its understanding of reasoning and argument. It also recognises its dependence on other disciplines. Murdoch develops this form of philosophy in reply to the cultural phenomenon of secularisation. In the absence of God, she attributes tasks to philosophy formerly performed by religion. Most importantly, she advocates a concept of transcendent reality in philosophical discourse. This reality is the Good. She finds that in order to do so, she has to reconsider philosophy’s central faculty of reason. Drawing on literary, philosophical and theological sources, Murdoch develops an understanding of reason and argument in which images, imagery and imagination are central. This study has three objectives. It first aims to present Murdoch as an imaginative philosopher by exploring the role of literature in her philosophical writing. In doing so, it challenges various presuppositions about philosophy, held by both philosophers and non-philosophers. Its second aims is to reconsider these assumptions in general terms. This part draws significantly on the work of Le Doeuff. In particular, it considers the presence of imagery in philosophy as well as philosophy’s assumed neutrality, which has arisen from its long affiliation with science. Thirdly, the thesis presents a reconsideration of the notion of imagination. This notion is often involved in the interdisciplinary debate between theology, philosophy and the arts. Murdoch’s notion of imagination challenges two important assumptions. By releasing imagination from the limited corner of art, it first challenges a strict distinction between literary and systematic writing. By introducing fantasy as the bad opposite of good imagination, it secondly critically assesses unconditional ‘praises of imagination’.
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Grimshaw, Tammy. "Sexuality, gender, and power in Iris Murdoch's fiction /." Madison : Fairleigh Dickinson university press, 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40061493w.
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Tomazic, Elizabeth Mary, and res cand@acu edu au. "Ariadne’s Thread: Women and Labyrinths in the Fiction of A.S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch." Australian Catholic University. School of Arts and Sciences, 2005. http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/digitaltheses/public/adt-acuvp91.09042006.
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This thesis is an investigation of the journeys towards a sense of identity or selfhood, achieved through honest and accurate appreciation of the lives of others, made by several female characters in the fiction of A.S. Byatt and the late Iris Murdoch. I believe that because Byatt and Murdoch value literature as a serious business that teaches as well as entertains, their writing can play a significant role in illuminating the lives of women by means of its portrayal of the resolution of women’s struggles. Women’s lives, despite the rise of feminism, are still not equitable. While many women strive to attain a balance of independence and intimacy – what Thelma Shinn calls a “meronymic” relationship – and connection within community, many do not succeed in this endeavour. The numerous challenges they face are difficult and confronting, and the stories of their efforts resemble journeys through a labyrinth or maze. Byatt acknowledges Murdoch as her literary mother, frequently citing Murdoch’s belief in the ability of literature to improve human life. While Byatt and Murdoch are interested in what characters learn about their relations to others and the world, they make it clear that characters are constructs, not real people. Yet their fiction is an ongoing exploration of the nature of reality and the nature of selfhood, particularly that of women. According to feminist theories, women are more constrained than men, and are therefore the focus of this study, but their experience of constraint is a more complex matter than experience of mere undifferentiated oppression, and is better represented by the structure of the labyrinth than that of the simple, linear journey. I agree with Byatt’s and Murdoch’s view of the importance of fiction as a means of commenting on human relationships, particularly with the notion of the need for connection within community. The labyrinth, together with the Bildungsroman, provides a paradigm for the complex experiences of Byatt’s and Murdoch’s female characters. All the characters in this study struggle to flee from restraint, seek purpose and agency in the world through interaction with others, and escape a feminised Plato’s Cave by learning to see more accurately, and all but one emerge from the maze into an autonomous and independent existence in community with others.
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Griffin, Gabriele. "The influence of the writings of Simone Weil in the fiction of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, University of Leicester, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/7648.
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Lee, Seogkwang. "A quest for alterity : a Levinasian reading of Iris Murdoch : her thought and novels." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.414769.
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Tomazic, Elizabeth Mary. "Ariadne's thread: Women and labyrinths in the fiction of A.S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch." Thesis, Australian Catholic University, 2005. https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/download/f460ef0772a6330f156c65e26a5c7c9278aefbf5f03157ea13d8c346a9797ab8/974339/65112_downloaded_stream_337.pdf.
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This thesis is an investigation of the journeys towards a sense of identity or selfhood, achieved through honest and accurate appreciation of the lives of others, made by several female characters in the fiction of A.S. Byatt and the late Iris Murdoch. I believe that because Byatt and Murdoch value literature as a serious business that teaches as well as entertains, their writing can play a significant role in illuminating the lives of women by means of its portrayal of the resolution of women's struggles. Women's lives, despite the rise of feminism, are still not equitable. While many women strive to attain a balance of independence and intimacy - what Thelma Shinn calls a 'meronymic' relationship - and connection within community, many do not succeed in this endeavour. The numerous challenges they face are difficult and confronting, and the stories of their efforts resemble journeys through a labyrinth or maze.
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Miller, Emma Victoria. ""Literary Incest" : intertextuality and writing the last taboo in the novels of Iris Murdoch." Thesis, Durham University, 2011. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1400/.
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Throughout her literary oeuvre Iris Murdoch displayed a preoccupation with the theme of incest, a consideration which has not previously been examined in a full length critical study. Her portrayal of the incest taboo is examined here in relation to incest as an abusive practice, which is the predominant image of the subject throughout her fiction. Examining the changes in scientific and cultural attitudes to incest in the post-war era, this thesis explores Murdoch’s literary interaction with these developments and how her writing reflects and challenges the social perspective contemporaneous with her individual works. The argument is concerned with the relationship between intertextuality and incest in Murdoch’s fiction and how she utilises an intertextual approach to confront dominant literary trends within the Western canon, occasioning the reader to reconsider the views presented by well-known literary and cultural narratives and their modes of expression. The examination of other ‘texts’ is not limited to the written word but to any art object which conveys a culturally recognised narrative and which relates to her presentation of the incest taboo. Incest was brought to the public forum partly by the second wave of feminism and the revelation of incest abuse coincided with the public recognition of child abuse more generally and thereby occasioned concern over the rights of children. Accordingly, therefore, this thesis focuses on the impact of a history of patriarchal domination on the suppression of women and children, and how this has affected the ability for incest victims to find a means of expression within a language, and therefore a literary culture, defined and designed by others. Murdoch is approached here through her concern with gendered stories and gendered means of communication, not in order to privilege one sex over the other but, anticipating third-wave feminism, employing them as a means to dispense with sexual difference and sexual expectations, in order to reach an androgynous narrative. Such literary concerns can be seen to draw not only from a process of the cultural evolution of narratives, but also out of the wider literary sphere, to affect social change.
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Pinto, Rafael da Silva. "Ética e metafísica na filosofia de Iris Murdoch : a peregrinação moral em busca do bem." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UnB, 2010. http://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/8404.
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Interpretação da filosofia moral de Iris Murdoch. A presente dissertação é estruturada em torno de três temáticas correlatas a fim de buscar uma compreensão abrangente da ética e da metafísica da filósofa. São elas: o pluralismo das visões morais, o bem e o vazio. A pergunta fundamental que orienta a investigação é sobre a possibilidade ou não de compatibilizar o pluralismo das visões morais e a soberania do Bem. Esta relação ocorre por meio de uma filosofia moral concebida como iconoclasmo criativo, que se nutre da tensão entre forma e contingência, explorando as fissuras e as ambigüidades de vários cenários e conceitos morais tais como retratados por sistemas filosóficos, pelas obras de arte, pela religião e tantas outras atividades humanas investigadas. Por meio da crítica de correntes filosóficas preponderantes, a filósofa delineia o seu programa de recuperação de conceitos e imagens metafísicos, esclarecendo a sua centralidade para o pluralismo moral, concebido como a exploração imaginativa do mistério vinculado às visões morais dos indivíduos. O caráter assistemático de sua filosofia bem como a pluralidade de formas adotadas para investigar cenários morais diversos integram a sua concepção de moralidade como uma peregrinação individual em busca do Bem, que envolve a purificação do Eros e o aperfeiçoamento dos estados de consciência. O Bem é a melhor metáfora encontrada para exprimir que a moralidade não pode ser descartada da vida humana. O seu caráter transcendente visa à preservação da consciência moral e do julgamento ético individual como ferramentas críticas para apontar os limites e as falibilidades de toda e qualquer teoria. A sua filosofia é um convite ao leitor para empreender sua própria jornada espiritual, é uma provocação para que os indivíduos não considerem o discernimento entre o bem e o mal uma mera questão de escolha ou de vontade arbitrária, mas um engajamento existencial na tarefa inesgotável de atenção, purificação da energia espiritual, aprimoramento da visão moral, que envolve tanto um aprofundamento íntimo da compreensão do vocabulário moral como uma transformação moral interior. A discussão do problema do mal face ao realismo moral abre caminho para uma análise mais acurada do conceito de vazio, que se revela como idéia-chave para a compreensão do Bem e da própria atividade filosófica. _______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT
Interpretation of Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy. The present dissertation is structured upon three issues correlated in order to propose a general grasp of ethics and metaphysics in Iris Murdoch’s thought. The issues are: the pluralism of moral visions, the good and the void. The fundamental question, which guides the investigation, is about the possibility of harmonizing her pluralism of moral visions and the sovereignty of the Good. This relation comes about by means of a moral philosophy conceived as creative iconoclasm, which is fostered by the tension between form and contingency, exploring fissures and ambiguities of several moral pictures and concepts as portrayed by philosophical systems, by works of art, by religion and so many others human activities investigated. By means of the criticism of predominating philosophical currents, the philosopher draws her recuperation program for metaphysics’ concepts and pictures, showing its centrality for moral pluralism, thought as an imaginative exploration of the mystery attached to individuals’ moral visions. The unsystematic feature of her philosophy, as well as the plurality of adopted forms in order to investigate different moral scenarios, integrates her conception of morality as an individual peregrination in search of the Good, which involves the purification of Eros and the improvement of states of consciousness. The Good is the best metaphor found to express that morality cannot be eliminated from human life. Its transcendent feature intends to preserve moral consciousness and individual ethical judgment as critical tools to point limits and failures of every theory. Her philosophy is an invitation to the reader to undertake his own spiritual journey. It’s a challenge to individuals not to regard the discernment between good and evil as a matter of choice or arbitrary will, but as an existential commitment to the ceaseless task of attention, to the purification of spiritual energy, to the improvement of moral vision, which involves an intimate deepening of the comprehension of moral vocabulary as well as an interior moral transformation. The discussion of the problem of evil faced with the Good as a reality principle enables a more accurate analysis of the concept of the void, that reveals itself as a key idea for the comprehension of the Good and of the philosophical activity itself.
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Ikonomakis, Roula. "Post-war British fiction as "metaphysical ethnography" : gods, godgames and goodness in John Fowle's "The Magus" and Iris Murdoch's "The sea, the sea /." [S.l. : s.n], 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40143287n.
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Morley, Elaine. "The Monster and the Maiden : Literary Affinities in the Writings of Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti." Thesis, University of Kent, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.523521.
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Reuter, Anne-Marie. "Fictions of authority : enchanters, teachers and mentors in selected fiction of Iris Murdoch and A.S. Byatt." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3784/.
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This thesis aims at showing how pedagogical concerns are manifest in the writing of Iris Murdoch and A. S. Byatt. Through the portrayal of teacher and learner characters they explore the working of authority in relationships marked by power, seduction, admiration and love. As Murdoch‟s and Byatt's learners share a tendency to choose a person or a work of literature as a guiding master, who is invested with excessive power, the proximity of teachers' and authors' concerns becomes apparent. Both authors analyse writer and reader characters alongside the pedagogical figures, and their own writing reacts to the concepts of authority as discussed within the novels. Murdoch rejects authority in principle with the consequence of becoming authoritarian in fact but also enchanting through the mystery she imposes on her readers. Byatt accepts authority and moves between an authoritative affirmation of her position and an opening up to the reader, which also leads to a sense of mystery. The conceptual tools used in this thesis are the figure of the fairy-tale enchanter as a teacher and writer model, as well as the figure of Socrates, and above all Jacques Rancière's concepts of the "explicating" and the "ignorant" master. While Rancière's two types need to have enchanting qualities in order to affect change, authority is determined by the needs of the learner, who may be satisfied with explanations and a transmission of knowledge, or who may have the self-confidence to do without firm guidance. Moreover, the timing of the experience is crucial, since what goes unnoticed at one moment may become obvious and clear later on. What exactly authority is, remains obscure to the end, since it is the result of a complex interplay between learners, teachers, lessons on the one hand and readers, authors, texts on the other hand.
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Rogers, Susan. "Art and Destruction : shared philosophies which shape the work of Iris Murdoch and A. S. Byatt." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8021.
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The genesis of this thesis was the observation that water played a role in many Murdoch novels as did accounts of the wanton destruction of valuable possessions. Study of the works of AS Byatt revealed a similar interest in the human impulse to destroy and in the Byatt tetralogy published over a period of more than two decades fire is often the means of destruction. My academic training to date has taught me to attempt to account for such observations. I concluded that Murdoch's obsession with the imagery and activity of water and Byatt's with that of fire reflect their awareness that, despite the wide acceptance of the death of the idea of God, humans as individuals and in community still need a religious life - ritual, ceremony, nurture, blessing and a moral order to control the human impulse to destruction.
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Toboul, Denise. "Problème du mal et conscience humaniste après 1945 : George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Angus Wilson, Iris Murdoch." Aix-Marseille 1, 1986. http://www.theses.fr/1986AIX10062.
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G. Orwell, a. Koestler, a. Wilson, i. Murdoch introduisent dans leurs romans une nouvelle prise de conscience du probleme du mal dans le monde contemporain. La societe britannique apres 1945 est en mutation; moeurs et moralite perdent toute reference aux valeurs victoriennes stables et protegees. Maintenant regnent relativisme, sentiment de l'absurde, confusion et desarroi dans la conscience de la guerre terminee mais encore possible. Orwell fonde son experience du pouvoir totalitaire sa critique des manifestations politiques du probleme du mal. Danger majeur du monde contemporain: l'aneantissement de la personnalite. Koestler dont l'experience personnelle s'inscrit dans la meme periode troublee s'en prend a la relation dangereuse existant entre pouvoir et ideologie. Le pouvoir d'hypnose du mal est source d'alienation. Dans la comedie de moeurs ambigue de la societe liberale, a. Wilson devoile les potentialites corruptrices de tout pouvoir laissant s'affaiblir la dimension ethique. Il analyse la structure sociale et la theatralite, forme subjective de l'experience du pouvoir. La lucidite peut orienter les determinismes vers la responsabilite, supprimant l'alienation. I. Murdoch analyse le mal dans les relations interpersonnelles. Partant de la difficulte de definir le mal, elle aboutit a travers une peinture lucide des effets de la volonte de puissance, du desir de posseder, de l'erreur de l'etre vis-a-vis de lui-meme a une condamnation du fantasme, forme du mal qui est source d'alienation. Marques par les tragedies de la politique mondiale ou par les transformations profondes du milieu sociologique, ces quatre auteurs mettent en lumiere leur desir de preserver l'esprit humaniste, seul remede pour eux contre les differentes manifestations du probleme du mal.
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Toboul, Denise. "Problème du mal et conscience humaniste après 1945 George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Angus Wilson, Iris Murdoch." Lille 3 : ANRT, 1987. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37598362c.
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Mete, Baris. "Reconceptualisation Of Realism In British Postwar Fiction: The Cases Of Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark And John Fowles." Phd thesis, METU, 2011. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613417/index.pdf.
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This study is about British postwar fiction and its canonical reception according to a special categorisation of the novelists who were publishing in Britain during the two decades after the end of the Second World War. The study emphasises that mainstream literary criticism of 1950s and &rsquo60s Britain tended to catalogue the novelists of this period according to a well-established dichotomy between tradition and innovation in which the traditional realist novels, the neorealist works of C. P. Snow, Angus Wilson and Kingsley Amis, were privileged over any other fictional work having modernist innovative characteristics. Therefore, the first published novels of Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark and John Fowles, novelists belonging to today&rsquo
s postmodern canon, were first critically recognised as social realist works in Britain. One of the objects of this study is to demonstrate the shortcomings of this classification. Moreover, the main argument of the study is that none of these three novelists should have been classified as a traditional realist novelist. All of these three British postwar novelists were reconceptualising traditional realism by self-reflexively including the problem of representation as part of their conventional subject matters in their formal realist novels.
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Dooley, Gillian Mary Adele, and gillian dooley@flinders edu au. "Courage and Truthfulness: Ethical Strategies and the Creative Process in the Novels of Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul." Flinders University. English, 2001. http://catalogue.flinders.edu.au./local/adt/public/adt-SFU20050530.150240.
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The novels of Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul are studied in the light of statements they have made in essays and interviews regarding the ethical implications of writing fiction. The purpose of this research is to examine the nature of the problems they have identified in the creative process of writing and the strategies each has used to address the ethical problems they perceive, and to assess the relative success of their chosen methods.
It can be seen that, although for each of them the quest for truth is their highest concern, they have each developed very different ways of dealing with the problems they believe are connected with writing truthfully, and in addition, they have defined the particulars of these problems in different ways. It is concluded that the more carefully examined and individually defined these problems are, the greater the internal consistency and credibility which is achieved by the strategies they have developed to address the problems, and the more their work has developed in the course of their careers.
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Magie, Lynne Adele. "The daemon Eros : Gothic elements in the novels of Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Doris Lessing, and Iris Murdoch /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9448.
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From, Andreas. "Den viljande människan och ett gott liv : -En undersökning av viljebegreppet hos Iris Murdoch och Simone de Beauvoir." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-242488.
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Ianuskiewtz, Ana Paula Dias [UNESP]. "Iris Murdoch e Simone de Beauvoir: uma leitura feminista de A fairly honourable defeat e La femme rompue." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/126527.
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Nesta pesquisa abordamos aspectos do feminismo pelo viés da crítica feminista anglo-americana em duas obras ficcionais publicadas no final dos anos sessenta e início da década de setenta: La Femme Rompue (1967), de Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), e A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970), da escritora irlandesa Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). Primeiramente, estabelecemos um diálogo entre o pensamento filosófico de Beauvoir e o de Murdoch. Posteriormente, estabelecemos uma relação entre a crítica literária feminista e o pensamento beauvoiriano e murdochiano no que tange a questão do papel da mulher como leitora e escritora de textos literários. Dessa forma, examinamos o papel do leitor(a) como instância fundamental no processo de desconstrução do caráter discriminatório das ideologias de gênero e demonstramos que, assim como Virginia Woolf, Beauvoir e Murdoch defendem o conceito de androginia na literatura. Finalmente, analisamos os diferentes recursos estéticos que Beauvoir e Murdoch utilizam na caracterização de suas personagens femininas, uma vez que La Femme Rompue apresenta as características de um romance moderno, enquanto A Fairly Honourable Defeat possui traços de um romance realista
The aim of this research is to address some aspects of feminism from a feminist Anglo-American critical stance in two fictional works that have been published in the late sixties and early seventies: La Femme Rompue (1967) by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970) by the Irish writer Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). First, we establish a dialogue between the philosophical thought of Beauvoir and Murdoch. Then, we firm a relationship between feminist literary criticism and Beauvoir's and Murdoch's thoughts regarding the issue of women's role as a reader and as a writer of literary texts. Thus, we explore the role of the reader as a key instance in the process of deconstruction of the discriminatory nature of gender ideologies and we demonstrate that, just as Virginia Woolf, Beauvoir and Murdoch defended the concept of androgyny in literature. Finally, we analyze the different aesthetic features that Beauvoir and Murdoch use in the characterization of female characters, since La Femme Rompue presents the characteristics of a modern novel while A Fairly Honourable Defeat has some traces of a realist novel
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Ianuskiewtz, Ana Paula Dias. "Iris Murdoch e Simone de Beauvoir : uma leitura feminista de A fairly honourable defeat e La femme rompue /." Araraquara, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/126527.
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Orientador: Maria Clara Bonetti ParoBanca: Cleide Antônia Rapucci
Banca: Guacira Marcondes Machado Leite
Banca: Maria Dolores Aybar Ramírez
Banca: Nadilza Martins de Barros Moreira
Resumo: Nesta pesquisa abordamos aspectos do feminismo pelo viés da crítica feminista anglo-americana em duas obras ficcionais publicadas no final dos anos sessenta e início da década de setenta: La Femme Rompue (1967), de Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), e A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970), da escritora irlandesa Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). Primeiramente, estabelecemos um diálogo entre o pensamento filosófico de Beauvoir e o de Murdoch. Posteriormente, estabelecemos uma relação entre a crítica literária feminista e o pensamento beauvoiriano e murdochiano no que tange a questão do papel da mulher como leitora e escritora de textos literários. Dessa forma, examinamos o papel do leitor(a) como instância fundamental no processo de desconstrução do caráter discriminatório das ideologias de gênero e demonstramos que, assim como Virginia Woolf, Beauvoir e Murdoch defendem o conceito de androginia na literatura. Finalmente, analisamos os diferentes recursos estéticos que Beauvoir e Murdoch utilizam na caracterização de suas personagens femininas, uma vez que La Femme Rompue apresenta as características de um romance moderno, enquanto A Fairly Honourable Defeat possui traços de um romance realista
Abstract: The aim of this research is to address some aspects of feminism from a feminist Anglo-American critical stance in two fictional works that have been published in the late sixties and early seventies: La Femme Rompue (1967) by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970) by the Irish writer Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). First, we establish a dialogue between the philosophical thought of Beauvoir and Murdoch. Then, we firm a relationship between feminist literary criticism and Beauvoir's and Murdoch's thoughts regarding the issue of women's role as a reader and as a writer of literary texts. Thus, we explore the role of the reader as a key instance in the process of deconstruction of the discriminatory nature of gender ideologies and we demonstrate that, just as Virginia Woolf, Beauvoir and Murdoch defended the concept of androgyny in literature. Finally, we analyze the different aesthetic features that Beauvoir and Murdoch use in the characterization of female characters, since La Femme Rompue presents the characteristics of a modern novel while A Fairly Honourable Defeat has some traces of a realist novel
Doutor
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Yore, Susan Elizabeth. "The mystic way in postmodernity : transcending theological boundaries in the writings of Iris Murdoch, Denise Levertov and Annie Dillard." Thesis, Durham University, 2006. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1810/.
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Jordan, Jessy E. G. Moore Scott Hunter. "Iris Murdoch's genealogy of the modern self retrieving consciousness beyond the linguistic turn /." Waco, Tex. : Baylor University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2104/5240.
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Dooley, Gillian. "Courage and truthfulness ethical strategies and the creative process in the novels of Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul /." Connect to this title online, 2000. http://voyager.flinders.edu.au/local/adt/public/adt-SFU20050530.150240/index.html.
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Wilkinson, Lorna Christine Rose. ""A blur of potentialities" : the figure of the trickster in the works of Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/28760.
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This thesis explores the figure of the trickster in the works of Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark. By looking at these writers’ treatment of elusive, illusive and allusive characters, the thesis argues that they each incorporated what can be read as “trickster” figures in their fiction as a means of addressing anxieties about art, society and the self. The trickster is a character-type found in narratives from a multitude of cultures and eras, and is typically characterised by his subversive presence, his boundary-crossing and his role as a healer of predicament. While the trickster is often perceived as a universal phenomenon arising from a collective unconscious, this thesis instead focusses on writers’ intentional inclusion of trickster characters in literature as a way of thinking through specific problems. Bowen, it will be shown, interpolated tricksy characters drawn from myth and fairy-tale into her fiction in order to expose a perceived rift between art and academia; Taylor used the trickster to think about the construction of identity in post-war Britain; Murdoch took models from Shakespeare to create tricksters that helped her explore the ethics of writing fiction; and Spark’s tricksters allowed her to conceptualise truth and lies, and good and evil. Concentrating on four mid-century writers whose works have been seen to vary in genre and style, this thesis demonstrates that a trickster paradigm emerged in mid-twentieth-century British fiction – a period not previously associated with the trickster. Influenced by converging strands of trickery and allusion in art through the early decades of the twentieth century, notable mid-century British writers used outsider characters to probe social and artistic shifts in a landscape fractured by war and to reach for a sense of healing. By identifying such characters as trickster figures, this thesis sheds new light on patterns of subversion, healing and character in mid-century fiction. It explores the particular affinity the trickster had with women’s writing, and illustrates how the trickster was important to twentieth-century concerns surrounding metafiction and the role of the reader.
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Walker, Rosalind. "The distinctive voice of literature and its importance to ethical enquiry studied in relation to the work of Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum." Thesis, University of Essex, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.411277.
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Nahir, Mohammed. "L'anti-heros dans : room at the top (john braine), lucky jim (amis kingsley), hurry on down (john wain), under the net (iris murdoch)." Grenoble 3, 1986. http://www.theses.fr/1986GRE39022.
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Notre analyse du phenomene de l'anti-heroisme nous conduit a formuler des hypotheses qu'une etude approfondie pourrait soit confirmer, soit refuter. La plupart des critiques associe l'anti-heros au mouvement de la colere qui a caracterise la scene litteraire en angleterre pendant les annees cinquante. D'autres l'identifient avec le mouvement existentialiste. Par ailleurs, force nous est de constater que les anti-heros dans les romans en question ont en commun des traits que l'on peut resumer en une tendance a la depression, un gout prononce pour l'aventure et un don inimitable de l'humour. Dans l'univers fictif, l'anti-heros est partage entre le desir de comprendre et l'indifference, car sa recherche de la verite se deroule dans un monde ou predominent le chaos et l'hostilite. L'anti-heros s'engage dans un mine, ce qui explique cette demarche nonchalante qu'il affiche pour mieux dissimuler son inquietude et sa solitude. Ainsi, sa felicite n'est en fin de compte qu'apparente et son succes social n'est pas acquis d'avance. Dans les romans en question, l'alienation acquiert des connotations diverses selon les besoins qu'elles est appelee a satisfaire. D'une maniere generale, on peut dire que l'alienation est mieux cernee sous son aspect psychologique. On comprend pourquoi l'anti-heros avec ou malgre ses defauts, aliene notre sympathie en sa faveur. En fin de compte, l'homme n'est-il pas, comme le suggere, fort bien d'ailleurs, heine, un compromis bourgeois ? un etre mi-dieu, mi-animal, telle est precisement l'image qu'incarne l'anti-herosTo what extent these novels can be said to reflect, or to mystify, reality is a question of how far the anti-hero's stands are relevant to this reality. One can actually measure out their validity in relation to the concepts of anger and existentialism. The study of these novels has hopefully demonstrated that the antihero is, on the whole, politically uncommitted, socially classless and emotionally apoplectic. In these novels, there is no utter rejection of society, not even a fundamental dissatisfaction with the injustices it wields. There is only a rejection of one life-style in favour of another. The denouement in these novels refutes the identification of the antihero with both the angry young man and the outsider. In retrospect, critics appear to have exaggerated these identifications. One can accuse the anti-hero of many things -of being an arrivist, a coward, a sycophant, but not of being a bore. Through the bias of humour, he transcends the boundaries of space and time -post-war england- and remains alive. He is constantly resurrected in literature and art. Perhaps, laughter is the best cure, after all