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.
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“She is a theme of honor and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provincialism.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)