1,720,974 research outputs found
Incest in Contemporary Literature
No full textThe project is distinctive as it is the first time an edited collection of essays has been produced focussing on the incest taboo and its literary presentation from the 1950s to the present day and considering a number of authors rather than a single author from this period. Cultural and scientific attitudes to incest altered significantly during this time frame. Second Wave Feminist campaigners such as Erin Pizzey and Susan Brownmiller drew attention to domestic violence and the necessity for women and children to be receive greater legal recognition, so that they had greater rights over their own bodies and psychological well-being. As a result of circumstances such as the foundation of the Women’s Shelter Movement by Pizzey, and Brownmiller’s hugely influential polemical text about the relationship between rape and power, Against Our Will, incest was for the first time widely recognised as a potentially abusive practise. It was also revealed to be a prevalent occurrence within many of the families of the Western world. Whereas women and children were often considered responsible for ‘inviting abuse’, in a dramatic shift in cultural and social attitudes they were now seen as probable victims, a circumstance that led to greater legal, medical and cultural emphasis on the rights of women and children, and ultimately the protection of children. Recent news coverage in the UK has drawn attention to the significant change of attitudes towards incest, sexual abuse and childhood between 1950 and the present day. This study considers the impact of this change in attitudes on literature and literary adaptations in the latter half of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty-first century.\ud
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The collection is organised into four sections each consisting of three chapters: (i) Incest and the Ordinary, (ii) Writing Incest and the Child Protagonist, (iii) Incest as Political Conceit, (iv) The Rhetoric of Incest
Iris Murdoch and the western theological imagination
No full textScholarly interest in theological aspects of Murdoch’s fiction and philosophy took off slowly. It was thirty years after her writing debut that the first work taking detailed notice of the theological language deployed by this overtly-atheist author appeared, and it was a further decade before theologians began to engage with Murdoch’s work together. But it was not until the twenty-first century that this aspect of Murdoch’s thought and imagination began to receive sustained attention. This collection seeks to build on this foundation, begun forty years ago, and to expand the work in this area of Murdoch studies which has lately been gathering momentum. This project consolidates earlier discussion of the vital part theology plays in Murdoch’s thought, and then takes the debate in new directions. Contributors include a wide range of current Murdoch scholars from diverse disciplines who develop debate about this subject in a variety of innovative and fruitful ways, to inspire future works in this area of Murdoch studies
Iris Murdoch: A Centenary Celebration
No full textThis book collects interviews of those who knew Murdoch, along with a new interview between the editor and A.N. Wilson
'Adolescent Girls Attract Ghosts': Iris Murdoch and the supernatural
No full textMiles Leeson explores ‘Adolescent Girls attract ghosts: Iris Murdoch and the Supernatural’ in Chap. 9, contending that although substantial work has been written on Murdoch’s early Gothic fiction, little attention has hitherto been given to her use of the supernatural as a motif throughout her fictional career. Leeson draws not only on her novels, but also on her philosophy and unpublished journals to suggest that this material is not primarily there to give a ‘chill’ or fictional frisson, but to illuminate her underlying motives with regard to deconstructing toxic masculinity, arguing that the adolescent woman has the strongest connection of all with the embedded supernatural. Above the narrative patterning, however, he also posits that Murdoch’s understanding of linguistic philosophy, emanating from the early work of Wittgenstein, allows for no conception of magic (or magical thinking) but that her perception of the social world she inhabits necessitates an engagement with, and use of, supernatural events, powers, and visions. As Murdoch herself says, the ‘world can suddenly show itself as magic. This is a permanent existential quality of the world. Nb social world is magical’ (151) and as careful readers, we should both recognise this tension, and celebrate its fictional appearance
Murdoch’s MacKinnon: the grounding of metaphysics as a guide to morals
No full textWhilst a good deal of space has been given to discussing the biographical connections between Donald MacKinnon and his most famous pupil, Iris Murdoch, little has been said of the influence of MacKinnon’s own theological writings, particularly Borderlands of Theology (1968) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974), on the later philosophy of Murdoch. Using the extensive marginalia and notes in her copy of these works stored at the Kingston University archive, this chapter will attempt to outline the impact his thought had on her final work, Metaphysics as Guide to Morals as well as their shared affinities for the work of Kant. It is the contention of the chapter that his lasting impact provided the groundwork for her final work of philosophy
Avuncular ambiguity: Ethical virtue in Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince (1973) and Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins (1954)
No full textThis essay will be twofold. Firstly an examination of the narrative place of incest within both Murdoch’s and de Beauvoir’s work and questioning the role of the ephebophilic attitudes of the central male characters to the younger, less experienced Julian Baffin (The Black Prince, 1973) and Nadine Dubreuilh (The Mandarins, 1954). Both of these texts are informed by philosophical idea of the virtuous and it seems clear that Murdoch takes much from de Beauvoir’s earlier novel (indeed in her letters to Raymond Queneau she is keen to meet the woman who has written such inspiring works of ‘persistent seriousness’). Although both texts take different inspirations– Murdoch from Shakespeare and de Beauvoir from her tumultuous relationship with Sartre – there are clear parallels running throughout and it is the focus of this essay to, secondly, explore both of the authors philosophical relationships with the virtuous and how this is related from their philosophical writings to ideas of ephebophilic incest within, arguably, their most important works.
Regarding de Beauvoir it is pertinent to ask if her commitment to existentialism clouds her judgement when producing The Mandarins: does she, as Murdoch argues in her essay “Against Dryness”, limit the approach of the narrative in order to create a tightly-structured philosophical novel? The structure of Murdoch’s work is far more relaxed and this is clearly seen in the style that Murdoch presents us with the sexual relations of the characters whereas de Beauvoir’s work aims to bring the reader to a better understanding of the underlying existentialist position. Is love debased by both Murdoch and de Beauvoir via the taboo of incest to heighten the eventual outcomes of the respective novels or does it form a signifying position that point us toward a new moral reality that developed after the Second World War?
Little work has been produced relating these two authors to the other and a reassessment of their work both timely and necessary
Iris Murdoch and the literary imagination
No full textIris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination is the first major collection of literary essays since her centenary in 2019. It brings together leading Murdoch scholars from across the world who expand the boundaries of recent criticism offering work not only on the novels, but on her unpublished poetry and archival materials. This collection discusses her interest in, and use of, Japanese literature; her relationship with, and reader-response to her, in Australia; Murdoch in the post #metoo era; her lifelong interest in the supernatural, same-sex relationships and friendships; as well as the use and abuse of biographical material. The collection widens the field of Murdoch studies and marks a new waypoint in the development of her critical reception
'Web of Life' - Profile of Kevin Petrie in Printmaking Today Winter 2024
No full textKevin Petrie, Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Sunderland, uses print to explore the novels and philosophy of Iris Murdoch writes Dr Miles Leeson. This is a 1200 word profile of Kevin Petrie and his recent work for 'Printmaking Today' which is the journal of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. The piece gives an overview of Petrie's creative practice focusing on the novels and thinking of Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). The piece discusses Petrie's evolving model of creative practice for this project: reading the novels, sketching to visualise elements, developing and combining images in the studio and then reengagement with Murdoch (through the community, literature and archive). Petrie's 'Other Journeys' and 'Web of Life' exhibitions are discussed.
The author, Dr Miles Leeson, is the Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at University of Chichester and Visiting Research Fellow at Kingston University. He is the lead editor of the Iris Murdoch Review, the Series Editor of ‘Iris Murdoch Today’ with Palgrave Macmillan, and has published widely on Murdoch’s work. He published Iris Murdoch: Philosophical Novelist (Continuum) in 2010, the edited collection Incest in Contemporary Literature (Manchester University Press, 2018), the festschrift Iris Murdoch: A Centenary Celebration (Sabrestorm Fiction, 2019), the edited collection Iris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and is currently writing Iris Murdoch: Feminist.
Four prints by Kevin Petrie are reproduced with the text:
Untangle
2024
Etching from two plates with Chine Collé
Paper 38x29cm Image 14.8x12.5cm
Photo: Dave Williams
Friends
2023
Etching with Chine Collé
Paper 38x29cm Image 14.8x12.5cm
Photo: Dave Williams
Love
2023
Etching with Chine Collé
Paper 38x29cm Image 14.8x12.5cm
Photo: Dave Williams
What lies beneath
2024
Lithograph
38.5x28cm
Printed by Lee Turner at Hole Editions Newcastle
Photo: Dave William
Poems from an attic: selected poems 1936-1995
No full textThis is the first selected collection of Iris Murdoch's poetry to be published in the UK
‘“[T]he thing that makes us different from other people”: Narrating incest through “difference” in the work of Angela Carter, A.S. Byatt and Doris Lessing’’
No full textAngela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop (1967) may initially appear to condone or excuse the incestuous relationship between siblings, Margaret and Francie. When the outsider to the household, Melanie, discovers their relationship, the siblings’ brother, Finn responds, “You know our heart’s core now, the thing that makes us different from other people.” Ferdinand de Saussure suggested that meaning is derived from what it is not, from its difference to the lexis it is positioned amongst. Derrida’s theory of différance elaborates Saussure’s consideration of difference by extending the methodology to cover all linguistic and pre-linguistic modes of sense and understanding. In Derridean terms then, the “incest” Margaret and Francie experience is not only understood as a word different to other words, but as a concept which is comprehended through its cultural context and its lack of other cultural contexts, through its relationship to the history of incest and everything it might become, but also on a more localised level it is understood in the terms of the house they reside within, its relation to the specific culture of that family and their particular past(s) and future(s). \ud
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Using Carter’s textual relationship with Saussure and Derrida as a starting point, this chapter will examine the writing of two other “literary” female authors and their narratological engagement with incest and difference with regard to différance. This will include a discussion of A.S. Byatt’s writing of incest and the assertion of familial class difference in Morpho Eugenia (1992). Similarly in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962), there is also a social and cultural hierarchy of difference, which is expressed through the telling of incest. By linking the difference of both the incestuous and the separateness of the notebooks a reading of transcription will suggest that incest does not only fill the abject space but comes perilously closer to home.\ud
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Essential to this chapter’s argument regarding the understanding of the persistence of the taboo and its narration, is Derrida assertion that in respect to the opposition of terms of meaning, or “marks”, “we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment. To overlook this phase of overturning is to forget the conflictual and subordinating nature of opposition.
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