Iris Murdoch: biography of this Irish philosopher and writer

The movie was released in 2001. Iris, a biopic based on the book that Iris Murdoch wrote her husband, the literary critic John Bayley (1925-2015). The writer had recently passed away and the tape knew how to take advantage of the fame from which she was called The brightest woman in England.

Considerations aside (it is not our mission to decide here if the film is good or not), the film brings to the screen the somewhat agitated youth of the philosopher, to then move to her last years, when she was fighting the terrible Alzheimer's disease, which finally took her life in February of 1999. By then, Iris Murdoch had left us no less than twenty-six novels and various works on philosophy; specifically, on moral philosophy, whose ideas she also included in her literary work.

In today's article we will give a review of the exciting life of Iris Murdoch, Irish philosopher and writer who has been regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language.

Brief biography of Iris Murdoch, called the brightest woman in england

Iris Murdoch's exceptional intellect was encouraged from an early age by her father, a modest civil servant who had moved from his native Dublin to London with his family. Wills John Hughes Murdoch came from an Irish farming family, but her humble origins did not was an impediment for her to develop a great love for books, which she later knew how to transmit to her daughter.

In some statements that Iris made as an adult, she talks about her family as a very happy trinity. And it is that the childhood of the little girl was flooded with happiness; Her parents were a strong, loving marriage and she always felt loved and supported by them. Perhaps this is the reason why the concept of love as redemption is so present in her work, both literary and philosophical.

• Related article: "How are Psychology and Philosophy alike?"

Childhood and youth surrounded by letters

The adolescent Iris soon displayed an extremely curious and vital character, eager for knowledge and experiences. In 1938 her parents enrolled her in Somerville College in Oxford to study humanities, which would do her intellectual baggage so well.

In the troubled years leading up to World War II, Iris joined the Communist Party for a brief period of time, a fact that would later veto her access to the teaching staff in the United States. During the conflict, the future writer collaborates in an institution attached to the United Nations to help the exiles who suffered the consequences of the war.

Probably, and as stated by Ignacio Echevarría in his conference on Iris Murdoch for the Fundación Juan March, this direct experience with the horrors of war implied an important learning for she.

At the end of the war, the girl, who in 1945 was already twenty-five years old, began to study philosophy at Cambridge., where the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) teaches, who will have a great influence on her. That same year she meets Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), an encounter that will have special relevance in her life.

The philosopher strongly impresses the young woman, who dedicates her first book to him: Sartre, a romantic rationalist. It will be Murdoch's first literary foray, that she will begin her career as a writer with essays dedicated to philosophy, a field in which she will stand out with the same excellence as in the novel.

• You may be interested in: "The 10 branches of Philosophy (and their main thinkers)"

The search for an ideal

During her youth, Murdoch had a hectic love life, with both men and women. Her sexual curiosity remained even after she married John Bayley (1925-2015), a student who would become a literary critic and with whom, however, he built a bond strong and happy. In one of the books that Bayley dedicated to her wife after her death, I chose Iris (1999), the husband points out that his wife's sexual life seemed to be driven more by admiration than pure sexual desire. In other words, she Iris granted her favors to the educated and intellectual men she admired, as part of the dedication to an ideal.

One of her most famous romances (and probably the one that lasted the longest) was the one she had with the Nobel Prize winner. Literature Elias Canetti (1905-1994) who, however, had harsh words for her in her work Fiesta bajo the bombs. In one of the chapters of the book, Canetti calls his lover "insatiable" when it comes to seeking complicated relationships.

• Related article: "The essential women in the history of Psychology"

The philosopher who was also a writer

Iris's early works were philosophical in nature. Her essays revolve around moral philosophy: themes about the nature of good and evil, the substitution of God with love and art, and moral dilemmas, among others.

However, Murdoch's philosophical activity does not stop with her essay work, but rather she imbues her fiction with unusual force and intensity. That is why her novels are often difficult to understand; though comedic and anecdotal situations abound, the deeper meaning of her stories is another matter. Iris does not stop being a philosopher, even when she writes novels.

Murdoch's first literary work caused surprise, since the public had grown accustomed to seeing Iris as a philosopher, not a writer.. It is about the novel Under the net (Under the Nest), published in 1954, a story that revolves around the writer Jack Donaghue and is tinged with moments that imply moral decisions, a recurring theme in the future literary work of the writer.

After the success of Under the net (which, by the way, has been considered one of the hundred best English novels of the 20th century according to the Modern Library publishing house), many more works followed. Murdoch's novel corpus contains no less than twenty-six titles, ten of which she wrote in just one decade. Particularly noteworthy, in addition to the aforementioned under the net, the black prince (1973), which portrays an obsession of an erotic nature, The Unicorn (1963), a marvelous gothic story set in a mansion lost in a desolate area, and The sea, the sea (1978), with which the author won the Booker Prize and which tells us about the futile attempt to escape (the her character she takes refuge in a town near the sea, where she will end up reuniting with an old love).

The splendid career of The brightest woman in England It was cut short in 1995 when, at a public meeting in Jerusalem, Murdoch entered a kind of block that prevented him from understanding and answering the question that had been addressed to him. What he at first interpreted as an artistic block turned out to be the beginning of Alzheimer's, a disease that ended his life in 1999. Her husband, John Bayley, stood by her until the end.