Iris Murdoch's lost poems to be read at festival

Iris Murdoch's lost poems to be read at festival1 hour agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleGalya DimitrovaSouth of EnglandSophie Bassouls/Sygma/Sygma via Getty ImagesDame Iris Murdoch won widespread acclaim with her novels and philosophical essays but poems hidden in her attic recently emergedRecently unearthed writings from the novelist and former fellow of the University of Oxford Dame Iris Murdoch will be among the topics of an upcoming free humanities festival.Dame Iris was also a philosopher, playwright and academic, whose books explored morality, love and human relationships.Think Human festival committee member Gary Browning said the Iris Murdoch Society had recently found the previously unpublished poems in the attic of her house on 30 Charlbury Road.Some of them will be read out at the Oxford Brookes University event, which aims to create connections between academics and the local community from 15-18 April.Think HumanActress Annette Badland will read Murdoch's writings, including a love poem about fellow philosopher Elizabeth AnscombeBrowning, an Emeritus Professor, will lead a discussion titled Oxford Quartet: Women Philosophers Against the Tide on 17 April.It will centre on the life and works of Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Booker Prize winner Dame Iris, who all came to Oxford as undergraduates in the 1930s."These women were much more inclined to be more objective in ethics and thought that we needed a strong support for ethics in philosophy," Browning said."Anscombe, after the war, felt very strongly that Oxford University should not give an honorary degree to Harry Truman, who dropped atomic bombs on Japan, and she was virtually alone in opposing this action."Browning said actress Annette Badland would read "a very moving" love poem about Anscombe by Dame Iris.Think HumanThink Human's director said Oxford Brookes and the festival in particular brought "an absolutely open atmosp...