(From 'The Sublime and the Good', Existentialists and Mystics, 1951) Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.

This is a point she also makes in her non-fiction writing:Īrt and morals are, with certain provisos, one. Miles told us that the novel contained one of Murdoch's most important statements about art and the central position of love in it the realisation of the existence of something outside one's self is central to this novel and Murdoch's writing. Murdoch is known to have visited, and we know she often took inspiration from actual places and events. He suggested Murdoch took inspiration from the eponymous abandoned village in Wiltshire which has a house of that name and its own Bell Inn, which also appears in the book. Miles discussed the interesting antecedents of Imber Court, the building at the centre of the novel, housing the religious lay community that is its subject. She was drawn to the world of contemplation and imagination portrayed in The Bell even as she became an ardent atheist later in life. Murdoch wrote to her: 'Take me with you as much as you can'.

A close friend at Oxford became a nun at Stanbrooke Abbey in Yorkshire, which may have provided the inspiration for the novel's Imber Abbey. Miles told us that Murdoch moved through a number of belief systems in the 1940s and 50s including communism and Christianity. The book sold well and won an enthusiastic reception from critics. She drew on many literary and philosophical influences, including Existentialism and Platonic thought. Miles' lecture focused on Murdoch's fourth published novel, The Bell (1958), part of a sequence of early works in which she experimented with different styles before settling down to her mature writing form. Iris Murdoch, a mid-twentieth century author working in the realist mode of Dickens, an exponent of the Gothic who hoped to be seen as an heir to Henry James, and whose work is loaded with references to philosophy and religion, was the subject of the Literature Cambridge online study session on 26 September.ĭr Miles Leeson, Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, showed us how an author with a reputation for difficulty, thanks to the philosophical ideas underpinning her work, can be perfectly accessible to general readers – although the underlying philosophy is a rewarding study for those who wish to engage with it.

The Bell by Iris Murdoch (1958) Lecture by Miles Leeson, 26 September 2021

The bell iris murdoch summary