The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. A Romance was published in the year 1796.
The word romance may be a little misleading and has to be understood in the context of the 18th century as Imaginary or Super-natural.
Is there a place for the super-natural amidst human society? If the scriptures are to be believed, the forces of evil and sin are always active to tempt you and drag you into the kingdom of the devil. The cardinal sins of pride, lust and wrath are injected into the Monk; Ambrosio by the devil himself in the form of a seductress and temptress Matilda who is a woman in the guise of a boy masquerading as a novice in the convent of the Capuchins where The Monk is the Abbot. He is the Monk revered by all Madrid for his piety, devotion and inspiring rhetoric. But his piety is all artificial, his love of God is a celebration of his vanity and his chastity is repressed passion waiting to be unleashed. The seeds of lust are born in his person even before he meets Matilda. He worships the beautiful Madonna adorning his cubicle at the same time lusting for her divine face and heavenly features. The downfall of the Monk is complete when he lets go all restraint and commits matricide (murder of his mother Elvira) incest and murder of his sister Antonia. The author does not allow the Monk to repent and when he sells his soul to the Devil, he is left to rot in eternal perdition. The Monk is a Gothic novel and can be called a masterpiece in that genre. It abounds in witchcraft, sorcery, ghosts and magic. The scene of action is mostly chapels, forlorn castles, crypts, caverns, monasteries and cemeteries. The power of evil and the artlessness of the good folk leave the readers angry and embittered. The novel is a scathing indictment of the dark secrets that lie hidden inside God’s houses and how the Abbots and Sisters often twist and distort the words of the holy texts to perpetuate their personal whims.
The incarceration of Agnes by the Prioress for the sin of adultery reveals the dangerous and diabolic nature of the exalted who are deeply enchained to their pride and viciousness, to the extent of discarding the basic human virtues of kindness and mercy. The power of sin and the lure of sex is another major theme as the characters of the Monk and the Bleeding Nun are debased to such levels that they live only to appease their carnal instincts. The Monk has its share of spice and has several passages and scenes of an erotic nature which describe ‘coral lips and swelling bosoms’
The masque and unmasking of Matilda from Rosario to Matilda, the blame laid by the Monk on Antonia after defiling her (calling her beauty and charms the cause of his downfall) highlight several points about gender and social attitudes towards sex and the female body in 18th century Europe. The Monk is my first Gothic novel. Although the stories of Poe and novels like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, The Woman in white, Dracula and the Hound of Baskerville contain Gothic elements, they do not delineate the immanent presence of evil. The Monk is a must read to understand the growth of horror and temptation as major themes in subsequent novels of that genre. ( To be continued)