Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti

towards a reassessment

Elaine Morley

pp. 145-159

in: Anne Rowe, Avril Horner (eds), Iris Murdoch, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

This chapter will argue that the relationship between Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti is in urgent need of reassessment. It has long been known that these two writers enjoyed a brief affair. It has also been alleged that Canetti's personality served as the model for Murdoch's most iniquitous protagonists. Yet new evidence suggests both that their relationship lasted far longer than we have been led to believe and that, perhaps more significantly, its consequences for Murdoch's work run far deeper than previously thought. By way of introduction I will set out some salient biographical details before describing how Murdoch's connection to Canetti has been portrayed so far. I will present and analyse evidence in the form of letters between the two and annotations in Murdoch's copy of Canetti's magnum opus, which alter this picture of the relationship. Textual analyses impelled by Murdoch's letters and annotations reveal that Murdoch and Canetti had shared intellectual interests that focused on the particular philosophical problem of the post-Kantian autonomous individual. This chapter will demonstrate how in her novel, The Time of the Angels (1966), Murdoch actually mirrors Canetti's discussion of this issue in his novel, Die Blendung (1935).

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel

Murdoch Iris

Canetti Elias