Abstract

Much about Muriel Spark is upsetting. Not least the fact that her writing, whether in style or subject matter, is perennially unclassifiable. Speaking to Janice Galloway in 1999, Spark admits that it is “very difficult to put my work in any genre and under any label––very very difficult ... It bothers people.”1 According to Ruth Whittaker, her writing is “more obviously resistant to the process of critical labelling than many writers because her direction and emphases change considerably in the course of her work.”2 As a result, it has proven a difficult task to assign Spark a place in the literary canon or even to assess her work's overall character. Nevertheless, and perhaps paradoxically, Spark’s art exudes aesthetic and ideological certainty.

Keywords: Muriel Spark, art, canon, aesthetics, ideology

How to Cite:

Lok, J., (2022) “Unfeeling, Unflinching, and ‘Superbly Uncuddly’: Muriel Spark’s “The Desegregation of Art””, Moveable Type 14(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.1755-4527.129