Adultery in the Novel

<p>Originally published in 1979. Adultery is a dominant feature in chivalric literature; it becomes a major concern in Shakespeare's last plays; and it forms the central plot of novels from <em>Anna Karenina </em>to <em>Couples</em>. Tony Tanner proposes that transgressions of the marriage contract take on a special significance in the "bourgeois novels" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His interpretation begins with the general topic of adultery in literature and then zeroes in on three works--Rousseau's<em> La Nouvelle Héloïse</em> Goethe's <em>Die Wahlverwandtschaften</em> and Flaubert's <em>Madame Bovary</em>. His interpretation encompasses the role of women the structure of the family social mores and the history of sexuality.</p>