This thesis is an examination of how the themes of adultery and regeneration are interwoven and explored by selected English novelists in the first half of the twentieth century. It is essential to establish that Ford, Lawrence, Waugh and Greene do not adhere to the ‘archetypal' pattern of the adultery novel established in the nineteenth century and, in fact, turn that pattern on its head. Ford's The Good Soldier and Parade's End provide two differing perspectives. The first uses adultery as a metaphor for the disintegration of English society, mirroring the social disintegration that accompanied the First World War; Parade's End, however, presents an adulterous relationship as being a regenerative force in the post-war society. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover also uses an adulterous relationship as a means of addressing the need for social, and national, regeneration in the inter-war years. Waugh's A Handful of Dust presents a woman's adultery as the ruin of not only a good man, but also civilisation in general; Brideshead Revisited is more religious in tone and traces the spiritual regeneration of its central character, whose conversion, ironically, is made possible through his adulterous relationship. Similarly, Greene's The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair portray the process of spiritual regeneration; in both novels this movement towards salvation is intertwined with an exploration of adulterous love. The ultimate question probed in this thesis is how the twentieth century novel of adultery overturns the traditional literary approach to the subject. Adulterous unions and illegitimate children are no longer presented as being exclusively socially destabilising or subversive in these novels; most intriguingly significant is that, in some of these novels, the illegitimate child becomes a symbol of hope, and, indeed, of regeneration.

Modernists have expressed their views on literature in various ways. Ford Madox Ford’s Ladies Whose Bright Eyes seemingly participates in a discussion regarding the value of imagination in contrast to reason. This thesis argues that Ford Madox Ford’s Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1911, revised 1935) represents the imagination in ways that suggest that the value of the imagination is greater than the value of reason in order to show the transformative power of literature. The novel’s treatment of the imagination has didactic implications for teaching literary interpretation and for fostering a joy of reading. The present thesis aims to explore how the novel treats the imagination by connecting the novel to modernist discussions of the imagination in Wallace Stevens’ “Imagination as Value” (1951) and Stevens’ “The Irrational Element in Poetry” (1936) as well as to Ford’s essay on literary impressionism “On Impressionism” (1914). The thesis expands upon Max Saunders’ argument that the protagonist, Sorrell, is transformed into a man of imagination. The literary analysis is structured around Sorrell’s transformation, from a rational man living in blissful ignorance of the world of imagination to a man of imagination instructed by Dionissia on living with the imagination in the rational world, through faith. A joy of reading and autonomous reading motivation can be fostered by providing students with choice, cognitively challenging tasks related to commenting on and analysing the novel, and by training students to use quotes via the use of reading logs. The novel’s indirect treatment of the imagination suggests the transformative power of literature, which makes fostering a joy of reading seem all the more important as it may provide students with a gift that will last long after their school years are over.