Iris Murdoch: Philosophical Novelist
(Hardback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Iris Murdoch: Philosophical Novelist
By (Author) Dr Miles Leeson
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
11th February 2010
United Kingdom
Classifications
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
823.914
Physical Properties
Hardback
170
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
Description
This book provides a concise and highly readable reassessment of Iris Murdoch's engagement with philosophy throughout her life and proposes that she was, most importantly, a philosophical novelist.
By investigating her use of philosophical argument in her fictional writing, it becomes clear that her narratives always depend upon a strong metaphysical underpinning. Leeson proceeds thematically through the philosophical phases of Murdoch's life and develops a clear argument that Murdoch reacts against the philosophies of Sartre, Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger not only in her philosophical writings but also in her fiction. Indeed, it is in her fiction that her philosophical argument is most persuasive and accessible.
This timely study provides new information regarding Murdoch's engagement with Martin Heidegger and also provides a detailed critique of critics who have overlooked Murdoch's engagement with philosophy within her fiction.
Reviews
It is a sign of health in a scholarly community when books arise that challenge its orthodoxies. Such challenge requires bravery of the scholar and meticulous care in arguing for new approaches. Leeson's book is brave and healthy in this way, aiming to open new lines of research and inquiry into Iris Murdoch's novels as, precisely, philosophical novels. Not novels in which philosophy is a motif (the orthodoxy), but in which philosophy is, in fact, done. Recent gestures by other scholars in Murdoch Studies indicate that such a line of counter-criticism has been opened, notably by the work of Bran Nicols and Guy Backus, though not settled. Leeson's book extends that line to firmly establish that Murdoch's novels do philosophy, and to open space for explorations of the depth to which her philosophy is woven into her aesthetic fabric . . . There is much inspiration to be found here, and Leeson has established himself as young scholar of both depth and promise. -- M. F. Simone Roberts, author of Irish Murdoch and the Moral Imagination: Essays (McFarland & Co Inc, 2010)
Author Bio
Miles Leeson is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth, UK.
