Iris Murdoch, The Time of the Angels

Tammy Grimshaw (Universidad de Jaen)
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The Time of the Angels

was heavily influenced by Nietzsche’s

The Birth of Tragedy

and likewise contrasts the Apollonian world of reason, clarity and morality with the Dionysian realm of irrationality, emotionalism and formlessness. Murdoch portrays this conflict in her characterisations of the two male protagonists, Marcus Fisher, a headmaster who is a Platonist and writer of a Nietzschean-style treatise on moral philosophy entitled “Morality in a World without God” (19), and his older brother Carel Fisher, an Anglican cleric who professes “to be the priest of no God” (182). In this novel, Murdoch plays out the central concern of her moral philosophy, namely the search for meaning in a world without God. Ostensibly echoing Carel’s ontological stance, Murdoch states in

The

2070 words

Citation: Grimshaw, Tammy. "The Time of the Angels". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10025, accessed 09 October 2024.]

10025 The Time of the Angels 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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