Iris Murdoch and the Gothic
Iris Murdoch and the Gothic
Hybrid course
Iris Murdoch's Gothic novels were all produced in the early stages of her career. It was a genre she used to work through her obsessions with power, erotic fascination, and the seductive power of horror.
Scratch the surface of just about any Murdoch novel and, just like the nineteenth-century forerunners she wished to emulate, there are elements of the Gothic. She wished to distance herself from this:
‘As a would-be realist, and somebody who I hope is writing novels that have a lot of different characteristics and different atmospheres, I would not like to be labelled a Gothic Novelist. I would regard this as limiting in a slightly derogatory sense’, in 1978 she agreed that her London novels had much in common with the genre. ‘My London, the Gothic London? That’s O.K. by me. I don’t mind the idea of Gothic London, the sort of Piranesi London; although insofar as London is a sort of main character in appears differently in different contexts’.
However, by the publication of her last major work that deals in the London Gothic, The Time of the Angels (1966), she had decided that a reconfiguration of her style was needed.
The key to understanding Murdoch’s interest in, and use of, Gothic settings and archetypes lies in her love for the great nineteenth-century novels of Austen, Henry James, Dostoyevsky and, especially Dickens.
We study four of Murdoch’s most gripping Gothic novels.
• The Flight from the Enchanter(1956)
• The Unicorn (1963)
• The Italian Girl (1964)
•The Time of the Angels (1966)
This hybrid course includes four recorded lectures plus a live online seminar of 90 minutes on Sunday 6 December 2026, 18.00-19.30 British Time. When you book, we will send you a link to the lectures within 24 hours. You can watch the lectures several times, if you wish, until the seminar takes place.
Dr Miles Leeson is Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester.
This course was first presented in 2023. We are delighted to offer it again in a hybrid form.
To book, please click on the black-and-white image below.
