Michèle Roberts’s "Flesh and Blood" as an Example of "Écriture Feminine"

• Authors: Joanna Morawska

Abstracts

EN

The essay offers an analysis of Flesh and Blood, a novel by Michèle Roberts, first published in 1994. It discusses the book from the vantage point of French feminist criticism, especially écriture feminine, as well as gynocritics. The theory serves as a reference point for a better understanding of the novel’s structure, language and plot. In the opening paragraphs, the essay delineates the main premises of écriture feminine, a French feminist theory represented primarily by Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, and gynocritics, a concept developed by the American feminist scholar Elaine Showalter. It then moves on to portray Flesh and Blood as an example of écriture feminine, analysing the aspects of the novel that mirror the theories of the French feminist critics: characters, motifs, structure, formal ploys and language.  

Keywords

EN

Michèle Roberts; Flesh and Blood; écriture feminine; gynocritics; feminist criticism; French feminism; women’s writing

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Analyses/Rereadings/Theories: A Journal Devoted to Literature, Film and Theatre
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 31-42

Dates

published

2020

Contributors

author

Joanna Morawska

• University of Gdańsk

References

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• Childers, Joseph, and Gary Hentzi, eds. The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1995.
• Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs 1.4 (1976): 875–93. https://doi.org/10.1086/493306
• Falcus, Sarah. Michèle Roberts: Myths, Mothers and Memories. Bern: Lang, 2007.
• Irigaray, Luce. “The Bodily Encounter with the Mother.” Trans. David Macey. The Irigaray Reader. Ed. Margaret Whitford. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. 34–46.
• Kristeva, Julia. “Women’s Time.” Trans. Alice Jardine and Henry Blake. Signs 7.1 (1981): 13–35. https://doi.org/10.1086/493855
• Roberts, Michèle. The Book of Mrs Noah. London: Methuen, 1988.
• Roberts, Michèle. Flesh and Blood. London: Virago, 1995.
• Roberts, Michèle. “January Talks to Michèle Roberts.” Interview with Linda Richards. January Magazine, 2000. Web.
• Roberts, Michèle. “Michèle Roberts.” Interview with Jenny Newman. Contemporary British and Irish Fiction: An Introduction through Interviews. Ed. Sharon Monteith, Jenny Newman and Pat Wheler. London: Arnold, 2004. 119–34.
• Roberts, Michèle. “On Women, Christianity, and History.” Interview with Patricia Bastida Rodríguez. Atlantis 25.1 (2003): 93–107.
• Showalter, Elaine. “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness.” Critical Inquiry 8.2 (1981): 179–205. https://doi.org/10.1086/448150
• Wittig, Monique. Les Guérillères. Trans. David le Vay. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2007.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/2353-6098.6.10

Biblioteka Nauki

2116521