What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
Iris MurdochRead
Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature is a methodical approach to evoke emotions in readers.
Iris Murdoch suggests that literature is not just an art form but a careful and structured way of stirring feelings within individuals. It implies that through narrative techniques, language choices, and thematic depth, literature can effectively elicit a range of emotional responses from its audience, showcasing the power of written words in shaping human experience.
Themes
LiteratureEmotionsArtTechniqueWriting
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club meeting to discuss the emotional impact of a novel.
More from Iris Murdoch
All quotes →The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
Iris MurdochRead
Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.
Iris MurdochRead
All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.
Iris MurdochRead
A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
Iris MurdochRead
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
Iris MurdochRead
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Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair. And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice
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