Michèle Roberts, The Visitation

Rosemary White (University of Northumbria at Newcastle)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1983

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Michèle Roberts’ second novel offers a more tentative vision of a woman’s life than the novels which precede and succeed it. In many ways The Visitation may be read as a transitional text in Roberts’ oeuvre, problematizing the conclusions reached in her first novel, A Piece of the Night [see entry], and introducing issues raised more explicitly in her later work. This novel follows a central protagonist, Helen Home, in her search for a balance between her relationships with men, her intimate friendships with women, and her desire to be a writer. The novel begins in the womb, where Helen and her twin brother, Felix, are represented as Eve a…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1989 words

Citation: White, Rosemary. "The Visitation". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 January 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10196, accessed 26 November 2024.]

Save this article