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Degrees of Freedom book cover
Degrees of Freedom
1965
First Published
3.85
Average Rating
224
Number of Pages
First published in 1965, A.S. Byatt's Degrees of Freedom examined the first eight novels of Iris Murdoch, identifying freedom as a central theme in all of them, and looking at Murdoch's interest in the relations between art and goodness, master and slave, and the novel of character in the nineteenth century sense. Drawing on Iris Murdoch's own critical and philosphical writing, A.S. Byatt discussed her interest in the thought of Sartre, Plato, Freud and Simone Weil, and related this to the form of the novels themselves.This edition of Degrees of Freedom has an added dossier of later essays and reviews of Iris Murdoch's work by A.S Byatt, taking us up to the publication of The Book and the Brotherhood in 1987. It also includes a substantial pamplet written for the British Council which follows Murdoch's fiction as far as The Good Apprentice.
Avg Rating
3.85
Number of Ratings
26
5 STARS
27%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
4%
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Author

A. S. Byatt
A. S. Byatt
Author · 32 books

A.S. Byatt (Antonia Susan Byatt) is internationally known for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize winner Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, and her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Elementals and her most recent book Little Black Book of Stories. A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, A S Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999. BYATT, Dame Antonia (Susan), (Dame Antonia Duffy), DBE 1999 (CBE 1990); FRSL 1983; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 2003, writer; born 24 Aug. 1936; Daughter of His Honour John Frederick Drabble, QC and late Kathleen Marie Bloor Byatt has famously been engaged in a long-running feud with her novelist sister, Margaret Drabble, over the alleged appropriation of a family tea-set in one of her novels. The pair seldom see each other and each does not read the books of the other. Married 1st, 1959, Ian Charles Rayner Byatt (Sir I. C. R. Byatt) marriage dissolved. 1969; one daughter (one son deceased) 2nd, 1969, Peter John Duffy; two daughters. Education Sheffield High School; The Mount School, York; Newnham College, Cambridge (BA Hons; Hon. Fellow 1999); Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA; Somerville College, Oxford. Academic Honours: Hon. Fellow, London Inst., 2000; Fellow UCL, 2004 Hon. DLitt: Bradford, 1987; DUniv York, 1991; Durham, 1991; Nottingham, 1992; Liverpool, 1993; Portsmouth, 1994; London, 1995; Sheffield, 2000; Kent 2004; Hon. LittD Cambridge, 1999 Prizes The PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Of Fiction prize, 1986 for STILL LIFE The Booker Prize, 1990, for POSSESSION Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize, 1990 for POSSESSION The Eurasian section of Best Book in Commonwealth Prize, 1991 for POSSESSION Premio Malaparte, Capri, 1995; Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, California, 1998 for THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE''S EYE Shakespeare Prize, Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, 2002; Publications: The Shadow of the Sun, 1964; Degrees of Freedom, 1965 (reprinted as Degrees of Freedom: the early novels of Iris Murdoch, 1994); The Game, 1967; Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1970 (reprinted as Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in their Time, 1989); Iris Murdoch 1976 The Virgin in the Garden, 1978; GEORGE ELIOT Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings, 1979 (editor); Still Life, 1985 Sugar and Other Stories, 1987; George Eliot: selected essays, 1989 (editor) Possession: a romance, 1990 Robert Browning''s Dramatic Monologues, 1990 (editor); Passions of the Mind, (essays), 1991; Angels and Insects (novellas),1992 The Matisse Stories (short stories),1993; The Djinn in the Nightingale''s Eye: five fairy stories, 1994 Imagining Characters, 1995 (joint editor); New Writing 4, 1995 (joint editor); Babel Tower, 1996; New Writing 6, 1997 (joint editor); The Oxford Book of English Short Stories, 1998 (editor); Elementals: Stories of fire and ice (short stories), 1998; The Biographer''s Tale, 2000; On Histories and Stories (essays), 2000; Portraits in Fiction, 2001; The Bird Hand Book, 2001 (Photographs by Victor Schrager Text By AS Byatt); A Whistling Woman, 2002 Little

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