The Adultery Novel

The object of this course is to analyze narratives of adultery from
Shakespeare to the present and to develop a vocabulary for thinking
critically about the literary conventions and social values that
inform them. Many of the themes (of desire, transgression, suspicion,
discovery) at the heart of these stories also lie at the core of many
modern narratives. Is there something special, we will ask, about the
case of adultery – once called “a crime which contains within itself
all others”? What might these stories teach us about the way we read
in general? By supplementing classic literary accounts by
Shakespeare, Pushkin, Flaubert, Chekhov, and Proust with films and
with critical analyses, we will analyze the possibilities and
limitations of the different genres and forms under discussion,
including novels, films, short stories, and theatre. What can these
forms show us (or not show us) about desire, gender, family and social
obligation? Through supplementary readings and class discussions, we
will apply a range of critical approaches to place these narratives of
adultery in a social and literary context, including formal analysis
of narrative and style, feminist criticism, Marxist and sociological
analyses of the family, and psychoanalytic understandings of desire
and family life.