English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

(1919-1999)

Iris Murdoch was one of the most complex writers of the 20thcentury English fiction. She was born in 1919 in Dublin. The main theme ofher novels is the fate of men and women in mod­ ern society, their belief and disbelief. Her heroes are lonely and suffering people. In all her novels we find love as great and mysterious force. It is the inner world of the character that inter­ ests Iris Murdoch. Her books arise out of the varied experiences of life.

Iris Murdoch lectured in philosophy from 1948 to 1963 at,the Oxford University in England. It influenced her literary career and she became an author of many books on philosophy and philo­ sophical novels. She began her literary career with a critical work “Sartre, Romantic Rationalist” (1953). Her first novel "Under the Net” appeared in 1954 and since then she published a book almost every year. .

Her characters face difficult moral choices in their search for love and freedom and are often involved in complex networks of

love affairs. Some of Murdoch’s novels expose the dangers of abstract system of behavior that cut out people off from spontaneous, loving relationships. “Under the Net” (1954) and “Fairly Honourable Defeat” (1970) are examples of it. “The Bells” (1958) describes the relationships among the members of a religious commune. In “The Severed Head” (1961) Murdoch portrays three couples whose unfaithful sexual conduct illustrates their shallow, self-centered philosophies. Existentialistic characteristic features of loneliness, anxiety and fear prevail in “The Unicom” (1963) and “The Italian Girl” (1964). The ninth novel, “The Red and the Green” (1965) is apparently a progressive point in Murdoch’s evolution to realism, but in her next novel, “The Time of Angels” (1966), the writer’s realistic vision is completely suppressed by the old pessimistic approach to the individual and society. The line of evolution of Iris Murdoch’s creative method was, thus, tremendously unstable and contradictory. By the time she began writing, she was a convinced defender of the existentialist trend in philosophy. Iris Murdoch was always looking for the mysterious in ordinary life. “The Sandcastle” and “The Bell” demonstrate her ability to make usual and even banal situations exciting. A loi of other novels, except “The Red and the Green”, brim with unaccountable horror:;, senseless crimes and love affairs. The characters are hopelessly engulfed in the world of evil, their alienation is complete, and the author’s dependence on traditional schemes of existentialism is obvious. The picture of the Irish uprising in 1916 in the “The Red and the Green” is written with a certain sense of real ism. Her other novels include an “Accidental Man” (1971), “The Black Prince” (1973)”, “ The Sea,The Sea” (1978), “The Good Apprentice” (1986). and “The Book and the Brotherhood” (1988). Iris Murdoch tried to write in the spirit of realistic traditions iri English literature. But her books are characterized by Romantic foundation.