Contemporaneous Treatments of The Theme of Adultery
The defeat of the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 in Europe appears to have unleashed a veritable epidemic of treatments of the theme of adultery. The rebellion of a wife against the fetters of her marriage may be seen as a code for the artist's rebellion against political and legal authority. In the same year in which The Scarlet Letter was published, for instance Verdi's opera Stiffelio was premiered, in which the title character is also a minister; it is not he, but his wife who commits the act of adultery. From 1854 to 1859 Richard Wagner portrayed adulteresses in Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde; at the same time, Gustave Flaubert was working on Madame Bovary.
Read more about this topic: The Scarlet Letter
Famous quotes containing the words theme and/or adultery:
“The saying, “The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored,” is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom.—A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Take adultery or theft.
Merely sins.
It is evil who dines on the soul,
stretching out its long bone tongue.
It is evil who tweezers my heart,
picking out its atomic worms.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)