Spark, Learning and the Primacy of Attention

Introduction

To date, little has been written on the pedagogical themes within the writing of Muriel Spark (1918–2006). Yet the insights into pedagogy of the French philosopher and teacher Simone Weil (1909–1943) as well as the Anglo-Irish philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) arguably gain illumination and elaboration in Spark’s own writings. Weil and Murdoch, inspired by Plato, concern themselves with how one thinks and how one grows intellectually and morally. Attention is the pivotal concept in their philosophies. To argue that this concept is pivotal as well in Muriel Spark’s sixth and most famous novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), is the purpose of the present short account.

The Primacy of Attention in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, set in Edinburgh in the late 1930s, chronicles the experiences of a group of schoolgirls under the tutelage of their memorable and extraordinarily compelling, while simultaneously controversial,...