The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [0]
PENGUIN CLASSICS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Dedication
History - ONE
History - TWO
History - THREE
History - FOUR
History - FIVE
History - SIX
Postscript:
PENGUIN CLASSICS
THE SEA, THE SEA
IRIS MURDOCH was born in Dublin in 1919, grew up in London, and received her university education at Oxford and later at Cambridge. In 1948 she became a Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford, where for many years she taught philosophy. In 1987 she was appointed Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire. She died on February 8, 1999. Murdoch wrote twenty-six novels, including Under the Net, her writing debut of 1954, and the Booker Prize-winning The Sea, The Sea (1978). She received a number of other literary awards, among them the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince (1973) and the Whitbread Prize for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974). Her works of philosophy include Sartre, Romantic Rationalist (1980), Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1993), and Existentialists and Mystics (1998). She also wrote several plays and a volume of poetry.
MARY KINZIE is a poet and critic who founded the creative writing program at Northwestern University. Her books of poetry include Summers of Vietnam, Autumn Eros, and Ghost Ship. Her most recent book of prose is A Poet’s Guide to Poetry.
By the same author
Philosophy
SARTRE, ROMANTIC RATIONALIST
THE FIRE AND THE SUN
ACOSTOS: TWO PLATONIC DIALOGUES
METAPHYSICS AS A GUIDE TO MORALS
EXISTENTIALISTS AND MYSTICS
Fiction
UNDER THE NET
THE FLIGHT FROM THE ENCHANTER
THE SANDCASTLE
THE BELL
SEVERED HEAD
AN UNOFFICIAL ROSE
THE UNICORN
THE ITALIAN GIRL
THE RED AND THE GREEN
THE TIME OF THE ANGELS
THE NICE AND THE GOOD
BRUNO’S DREAM
A FAIRLY HONOURABLE DEFEAT
AN ACCIDENTAL MAN
THE BLACK PRINCE
THE SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE MACHINE
A WORD CHILD
HENRY AND CATO
THE SEA, THE SEA
NUNS AND SOLDIERS
THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUPIL
THE GOOD APPRENTICE
THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD
THE MESSAGE TO THE PLANET
THE GREEN KNIGHT
JACKSON’S DILEMMA
Plays
A SEVERED HEAD (with J. B. Priestley)
THE ITALIAN GIRL (with James Saunders)
THE THREE ARROWS and
THE SERVANTS AND THE SNOW
THE BLACK PRINCE
Poetry
A YEAR OF BIRDS
(Illustrated by Reynolds Stone)
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus 1978
First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press 1978
Published in Penguin Books 1980
This edition with an introduction by
Mary Kinzie published in Penguin Books 2001
Copyright © Iris Murdoch, 1978
Introduction copyright © Mary Kinzie, 2001
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Murdoch, Iris.
The sea, the sea / Iris Murdoch ; introduction by Mary Kinzie.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-49565-0
1. Middle aged men—Fiction. 2. London (England)—
Fiction. 3. Actors—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.U7 S25 2001
823′.914—dc21 00-061132
http://us.penguingroup.com
INTRODUCTION: THE DANCE OF CREATION
In his portrait from the mid-1980s entitled “Dame Iris Murdoch” Tom Phillips painted the novelist looking out to her right toward the light that falls on her strong, pale face, high Mongol-looking cheekbones, and unsmiling mouth. Murdoch’s hair, as always roughly chopped, looks unattended to; her collar is awry. (One wrinkle in its cloth—a subtle touch—resembles a tendon in the neck.) Her expression is at once mournful and calm. A profound alertness and unflinching quality is created by the almost sweet set of the mouth and the indirect gaze, so unlike the many