From Chivalry To Modern Moral

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) as an outstanding writer from Britain, whose writings include novels, plays, poems and commentaries, is best known for her novels. From her first novel Under the Net to the last Jackson's Dilemma, Murdoch had altogether written 26 novels. Meanwhile she had written a collection of philosophical works, with regard to art, aesthetics, religion and so forth. Murdoch's novels highly embody her concerns to ethics and humanity. Murdoch was influenced by thoughts from Anglican, Plato, Sartre's Existentialism, and Tibetan Buddhism, and had her own system of moral philosophy. Thanks to her identity as a philosopher, her novels can extend to a deeper level than ordinary ones.This thesis chooses Murdoch's second last novel, The Green Knight as the object of study. This fiction has an intertextual relation with a medieval long piece of poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight referring to the basic narrative frame, the constructive functions of the characters, as well as the contained significance. The whole article is divided into three parts. This thesis will, from the Murdoch's writing background to the detailed text, progressively engage on the analysis and research of the reason why the author had adapted such a way of writing.In the first chapter, the thesis will first focus on Murdoch's double identities as a writer and a philosopher, and try to analyze how she could reconcile the conflict between literature and philosophy. In Murdoch's philosophical works, she points out that she wishes to make metaphor serve as a bridge to promote the friendship between rational philosophy and the emotional literature, and she could also melt the expression of metaphor into the writing practice. The second section will introduce this kind of writing tendency in her several other novels to explore her unique writing style. And third section will take the analysis of the status and the tradition of the romance of knight in the history of western, especially English literature, and preliminary discuss the reason why Murdoch chose the medieval theme as the referent of intertextual writing.In the second chapter, the thesis will take a view of The Green Knight as a realistic story, and later further look into the implication raised by the intertextual relation with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. If we take The Green Knight as an independent novel, it surely can exist solo. However, due to the complicated relations of characters and the absurd scenarios, the novel could be considered ridiculous and hard to understand, thus be underestimated. By analyzing the corresponding relation between the novel and the poem, we can discover that the writer not only used the frame of the narrative as a source of reference, but also derive the chivalry of the poem. She also dissimilated some elements in order to reflect on the concerns with the issue of "good" in her moral philosophy.The last chapter will base on the text to do further analysis. Thoroughly dissecting the protagonists, including Peter, Lucas, Clement, Bellamy and a few female characters helps to find out that they all play similar roles in function and meaning with the characters from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, such as the Green Knight, Sir Gawain, Morgan le Fay and so on. The medieval knights have to pass the test to defend the honor of knights as a whole and make efforts to obtain self-perfection, while in the modern society, the figures in Murdoch's novel have to pass the test to gain the internal peace and pursue the "good" in their lives. This kind of similarity, on one side, serves as an effect of parody in the narrative way. One the other side, it does not only connect literature with philosophy, but prompts the intrinsic meaning of the novel to a high level, furthermore gives expression to Murdoch's moral philosophy.Though this style of writing is criticized by some reviewers, this thesis considers that it is the only road leading to the harmony of her two identities. Only by using the metaphor could she both prevent her characters from being the pale symbols and mouthpieces of herself, effectively presenting thoughts and illuminate her philosophical ideas. The Green Knight shows Murdoch's high artistic attainments and profound philosophical connotation. By selecting this medieval poem as an intertextual counterpart, Murdoch successfully created a mysterious and romantic tune, as well as vividly and vibrantly conveyed rational philosophical wisdom to the readers.