English writer Iris Murdoch: biography, creativity and photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

One of the greatest British writers of the 20th century, Iris Murdoch, left the world with a number of outstanding novels that will be pondered over by more than one generation of readers. She devoted her whole life to literature. Her path was not easy, she had to endure a lot of difficulties, especially at the end of her life.

Origin and childhood

Iris Murdoch was born on July 15, 1919 in the Phibsborough area of Ireland's capital, Dublin. Her father came from a Presbyterian family that ran sheep. During the First World War, he was a cavalryman, and later became a civil servant. Mother Iris was an opera singer, came from an English family. The parents met in Dublin and married there in 1918. A year later they had a daughter, she was the only child in the family. In 1920, the Murdoch family moved to London (her father got a job as a clerk in the Ministry of He alth), where the future writer spent her childhood. However, her Irish roots made themselves felt all her life, the problems of Ireland have always been close to Iris. Childhood Murdochwas very happy, she talked about how her family was a "perfect trinity of love."

Education

Iris Murdoch received her primary education at an independent coeducational school in Roehampton. She then attended a girls' school in Bristol, where "little ladies" were taught. In 1938, she entered Somerville College at Oxford University, first in English, but later moved to the class of ancient and British literature, including E. Frenkel's class on the history of Agamemnon. She also attended a seminar on philosophy, where her classmate was Donald McKinnon. She graduated with honors from the college in 1942 with a 1st degree.

Beginning of adult life

The outbreak of war prevented the continuation of Iris's education. After college, she began working at the Treasury Department. But in 1944, Murdoch went to work for the UN, first as a clerk and then in a refugee camp on the Continent. She worked at the UN Rehabilitation Center until 1946.

In 1947, Iris Murdoch entered graduate school at Newnham College, Cambridge University, where she studied philosophy. She even had a chance to meet L. Wittgenstein, but she did not have time to listen to his lectures: the philosopher left to work in another college.

Teaching activities

In 1948, Iris Murdoch began her teaching career. She gets a seatLecturer in Philosophy at St. Anne's College, Oxford University. She devoted 15 years of her life to this activity. Oxford became a real destiny for her: the most significant events of her life took place here. In 1963, by that time already a well-known writer, she went to work at the Royal College of Art in the Department of General Studies, where she continued to teach philosophy. In 1967, she left the regular teaching activity, limiting herself to only occasional lectures to students.

First literary experiments

Murdoch started writing relatively late. Her first novel, Under the Net, appeared in 1954. However, this fits into the English tradition of those years: the famous writer John Fowles began creating her literary masterpieces at the age of 37, W. Golding at 45. For Murdoch, at first this activity was only a hobby. She wrote before the novel Under the Net, but her first literary experiences were never presented to the general public. Her work created the prerequisites for writing and she began to write books as artistic illustrations of philosophical postulates. Iris Murdoch's first novel, which ranged from admiration to outright rejection, was a complex synthesis of the philosophy and traditions of the picaresque novel. The book is included, according to Time magazine, in the 100 unsurpassed English-language novels of all time. The novel "Under the Net" became the only humorous work of the writer, it already showed the main features of the future literary work of Iris Murdoch.

Creative path

Having entered the literary path, Murdoch rushed along it confidently and productively. Two years after the first successful experience, her second novel, Escape from the Wizard, appears. In the novels of the 1950s and 1960s, researchers find great influence from the philosophy of existentialism. The end of the 60s was marked by the release of a series of books that researchers called "novels of mystery and horror": "The Time of Angels", "Italian", "Severed Head", "Unicorn". In them, Murdoch explores the influence of destructive passions on a person. The comic line is continued by Iris Murdoch's novel "Wild Rose". He showed a great talent as a realist writer, whose traditions were laid down by the classics of English literature. The novel tells about love, freedom and marriage, Murdoch explores the relationship of these phenomena. In 1974, the book was made into a 4-episode film for American television. The 70s were for Murdoch a time of maturity as a writer. She strives to continue the tradition of Shakespeare as an exemplary embodiment of goodness. The author immerses the reader in the poetics of theatricality and creates his own interpretations of Shakespeare's stories. The "Shakespearean" cycle includes the novels "The Black Prince", "Jackson's Dilemma" and "Sea, Sea". Murdoch's Shakespeare's characters receive a new interpretation and transformation in search of goodness and the meaning of life. At the same time, the author ironically over the hero, and over the reader, and over himself. The creativity of the 1980s is characterized by an increase in play, the writer constructs novels like a rebus, in which the meaning is not only encrypted in various plot collisions and turns, but also hidden in a complexcombinations of quotes, allusions, references to other texts. Iris Murdoch's 1985 novel The Virtue School builds on her beloved psychoanalyst character, who is both a wizard and a demon, a man overwhelmed by passions. The novel is called the beginning of the "new Murdoch", non-philosophical, although it continues many themes from previous creative periods. In this book, didacticism, religiosity, unusual for the author, begins. Its happy ending looks illogical in the context of the writer's common legacy. The novels of recent years are losing the endless charm of Murdoch's prose, and the moralistic principle is intensifying in them. Her last novel was Jackson's Dilemma in 1992.

The pinnacle of creativity

Traditionally, Iris Murdoch's novel "The Black Prince" is considered the best. This book was published in 1973 and belongs to the most fruitful period of the writer. This book is the author's interpretation of the story of Hamlet; experts also refer it to the so-called "Platonic" series. The "Black Prince" has a sophisticated, symbolic structure and a rich philosophical component. The complex plot composition is combined with a lot of reflections of the hero, all this makes the book difficult, but very exciting reading. Murdoch does not help the reader find his own interpretation of the novel, and therefore there are several options for interpreting it. The book was critically acclaimed, nominated for the Booker Prize and awarded the James Taite Prize. The highest manifestations of Murdoch's talent also include the novels "The Dream of Bruno","Sea, Sea" and "Child of the Word". These books raise the most important topics for the writer of the meaning of life, emotions and passions in human life, the problem of freedom.

Philosophical views

Iris Murdoch has been a philosopher all her life. She writes her first works in a philosophical vein. In 1953 she wrote a book about Sartre. Even at the beginning of her journey, she was carried away by the philosophy of existentialism, and her early novels "Escape from the Wizard" and "The Unicorn" are permeated with the ideas of this direction. According to the researchers, the books of J.-P. Sartre's Nausea and The Wall. Several of her articles were devoted to the analysis and criticism of the views of Kant and Wittgenstein. A significant period of her life passed under the sign of Plato, who inspired her to reflect on the relationship between reality and illusion, to search for a moral life. The theme of moral quest became dominant in the novel "The Man of Accidents". Iris Murdoch explores in it the problem of the individual's moral responsibility to other people, but uses a comic form of presentation. In the last years of her life, she again returned to writing philosophical works and wrote Metaphysics as a Guide to Morality and Existentialists and Mystics, in which she formulated her own views on morality.

Awards

During her 40-year writing career and outstanding novels, Iris Murdoch has received numerous awards and prizes. She was a multiple nominee and winner of the Booker Prize (for the novel "Sea, Sea"). in 1987 Murdoch received the title of Emeritus Professor at Oxford. In 1988 she was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize. She was also awarded the highest title of Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1989. Throughout her life, she gave more than 20 honorary lectures at various universities around the world. In 1997, she received the Golden Pen Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award for English Literature.

Private life

In her youth, Iris experienced two great personal dramas: during the war, two of her beloved men, Frank Thompson and Franz Steiner, died. Therefore, for some time she could not establish a serious relationship. In the early 50s in Oxford, Iris Murdoch, whose biography says that she lived a significant part of her life in this university town, meets her colleague John Bailey. He was a teacher, literary critic, writer, Murdoch and Bailey had a lot in common. They married in 1956 and lived together until Iris' death. After her death, Bailey wrote a book about Iris, which was made into a famous film that won several Oscars. However, biographers and friends of Murdoch reacted negatively to this book, stating that it contains distortions and exaggerations of facts. In it, the personal life of the writer looks like a series of novels with men and women. How much this corresponds to reality is unknown. Just as it is not entirely clear why the couple did not have children. Bailey claims it was Iris who didn't want to become a mother, while her friends say it was John's decision.

Last years of life

IrisMurdoch, whose books are recognized by the entire world community, suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the last years of her life. She gradually lost her memory, the ability to intellectual activity, could not serve herself. All worries about her were taken over by her husband, who tried to make her life easier and did not send her to a nursing home. On February 8, 1999, Iris Murdoch passed away.

Memory and heritage

Writing left a legacy of 26 excellent novels that forever inscribed her name in the list of the best writers of the 20th century. Iris Murdoch's novel "The Black Prince" is included in the university curriculum of almost all literary universities in the world. Several books have been written about Iris's life, and several films have been made based on her works.