Iris Murdoch: Texts and Contexts

by Anne Rowe (Editor), Avril Horner (Editor)

Iris Murdoch: Texts and Contextsoffers fresh insights into Murdoch's work by placing it within a diversity of new contexts. These include unpublished archival material, such as recently acquired correspondence and the many annotations Murdoch made to the books held in her Oxford library, now housed in Kingston University's Special Collections. The volume also reveals startling parallels between Murdoch's writing and other literary and philosophical texts, such as Derrida's late publications and plays by Thomas Middleton and T.S.Eliot. Her engagement with the work of important twentieth-century intellectuals, such as Reich and Elias Canetti is re-assessed and her status as a visionary thinker is explored. Recent fictions by Ian McEwan and John Banville are used to probe and define Murdoch's political sensibility, the experimental nature of her writing and her theories of art. Finally, the essays included in this volume provide new perspectives on Murdoch's interest in sadomasochism, mourning, and the power dynamic within both personal relationships and society at large.

259 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2012