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
Anna Karenina
to
Couples
. 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
La Nouvelle Héloïse
, Goethe's
Die Wahlverwandtschaften
, and Flaubert's
Madame Bovary
. His interpretation encompasses the role of women, the structure of the family, social mores, and the history of sexuality.