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Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, ''Under the Net'', was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1987, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her books include ''The Bell'' (1958), ''A Severed Head'' (1961), ''The Red and the Green'' (1965), ''The Nice and the Good'' (1968), ''The Black Prince'' (1973), ''Henry and Cato'' (1976), ''The Sea, the Sea'' (1978, Booker Prize), ''The Philosopher’s Pupil'' (1983), ''The Good Apprentice'' (1985), ''The Book and the Brotherhood'' (1987), ''The Message to the Planet'' (1989), and ''The Green Knight'' (1993). In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".〔(5 January 2008). . ''The Times''. Archived on 25 April 2011. Retrieved on 18 June 2012.〕 ==Life== Iris Murdoch was born in Phibsborough, Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of Irene Alice (née Richardson 1899–1985) and Wills John Hughes Murdoch. Her father, a civil servant, came from a mainly Presbyterian sheep farming family from Hillhall, County Down. In 1915 he enlisted as a soldier in King Edward's Horse and served in France during the First World War before being commissioned as a Second lieutenant. Her mother had trained as a singer before Iris was born, and was from a middle class Church of Ireland family in Dublin. Iris Murdoch's parents first met in Dublin when her father was on leave and were married in 1918. Iris was the couple's only child. When she was a few weeks old the family moved to London, where her father had joined the Ministry of Health as a second class clerk. Murdoch was educated in progressive independent schools, entering the Froebel Demonstration School in 1925 and attending Badminton School in Bristol as a boarder from 1932 to 1938. In 1938 she went up to Somerville College, Oxford, with the intention of studying English, but switched to Classics. At Oxford she studied philosophy with Donald M. MacKinnon and attended Eduard Fraenkel's seminars on ''Agamemnon''.〔 She was awarded a First Class Honours degree in 1942. After leaving Oxford she went to work in London for HM Treasury. In June 1944 she left the Treasury and went to work for the UNRRA. At first she was stationed in London at the agency's European Regional Office. In 1945 she was transferred first to Brussels, then to Innsbruck, and finally to Graz, Austria, where she worked in a refugee camp. She left the UNRRA in 1946.〔 From 1947 to 1948 Iris Murdoch studied philosophy as a postgraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge. She met Wittgenstein at Cambridge but did not hear him lecture, as he had left his Trinity College professorship before she arrived.〔 In 1948 she became a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, where she taught philosophy until 1963. From 1963 to 1967 she taught one day a week in the General Studies department at the Royal College of Art〔 In 1956 Murdoch married John Bayley, a literary critic, novelist, and from 1974 to 1992 Warton Professor of English at Oxford University, whom she had met in Oxford in 1954. The unusual romantic partnership lasted more than forty years until Murdoch's death. Bayley thought that sex was "inescapably ridiculous." Murdoch in contrast had "multiple affairs with both men and women which, on discomposing occasions, () witnessed for himself". Iris Murdoch's first novel, ''Under the Net'', was published in 1954. She had previously published essays on philosophy, and the first monograph about Jean-Paul Sartre published in English. She went on to produce 25 more novels and additional works of philosophy, as well as poetry and drama. In 1976 she was named to the Commander of Order of the British Empire and in 1987 was made a Dame Commander of Order of the British Empire.〔 She was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Bath (DLitt,1983), University of Cambridge (1993)〔() 〕 and Kingston University (1994), among others. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1982.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterM.pdf )〕 Her last novel, ''Jackson's Dilemma'', was published in 1995. Iris Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1997 and died in 1999 in Oxford.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Iris Murdoch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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