Rating: 
Summary: My Favorite
Review: The Monk is by far my favorite piece of Gothic Lit. I used to be like most people and only knew the gothic through my experiences with Poe. Then I took a Gothic Literature course. My eyes were opened to a world I never knew existed as extensively as it does. The Monk was one of the assigned books to read, and I absolutely loved it. I knew it had to be a great book when I started getting wierd looks from my room mate when I gasped loudly or shouted "Oh my goodness!" at several places in the book.
One of the greatest aspects of The Monk is that it is a great book, but for those who have any knowlege of gothic liturature, it offers so much more.
This book deals with issues like pride, love, and sexual desire. Yet I loved that all of these issues are dealt in a psychological way, not a physical. You don't have to read through the details of sexual incounters that many 20th century gothic novels contain. But you don't need those details, and if fact the book would make less of an impact if it had them.
The undergroud passageways and dungeons offer more than setting to this horrific novel--they explore the deep recesses of the psyche.
If you haven't read The Monk, you should. In short, it is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written.
Rating:
Summary: The most influential of the Gothic horror novels
Review: The Monk is perhaps the most significant and certainly the most controversial of the Gothic novels of the late 18th century. Amazingly, its author, nineteen-year-old Matthew Lewis, wrote the novel in a period of only six weeks. Although inspired by the work of Ann Radcliffe (among other Gothic writers), Lewis goes far beyond the sensibilities of his predecessors and does not choose to explain away the supernatural events fuelling this inflammatory novel. The Monk is a tale of human evil in its most vile form; the unspeakable acts described in these pages are committed by the supposedly most devout individuals in society. The Catholic Church was incensed with the novel's publication, and it is actually quite remarkable that The Monk was published at all and that its author faced nothing more dire than censorship and indignant protest as a consequence of it.Ambrosio is the most celebrated, revered monk in Madrid (in the era of the infamous Spanish Inquisition) - his sermons attract crowds far too large to gain admittance to the sanctuary, and everyone holds him up as a veritable saint walking the earth. His fall from grace is precipitous indeed. Secretly, Ambrosio is vain and proud, blissfully assured of his own near-perfection. At the first temptation of lust, however, this holy man reveals himself to be the ultimate hypocrite, giving in rather easily to the type of desire he rails against each Sunday. After learning that his friend Rosario is in fact a lovely woman in disguise named Matilda, he revels in the love she declares for him and quickly becomes her secret lover. Quickly and ever more thoroughly consumed by his new-found passion and carnal lasciviousness, he grows tired of the ever-willing Matilda and turns his perverted eye toward the sweet and wholly innocent young Antonia. Through the witchcraft of Matilda, he comes to consort with demons in the sacred crypts underneath the abbey itself, giving up his morality and piety in the blind pursuit of actions worse than mere rape. Ambrosio is not the only hypocritical, secretly sinful church official in Madrid, however. The prioress of the convent bordering the abbey is a sickeningly cruel and spiteful agent of perfidy herself. When she discovers that Agnes, one of her novitiates, is pregnant, she is so mortified at the impending shame this fact will bring down upon her and the convent that she resorts to the most barbaric of punishments for the poor and pitiable young lady. While her crimes do not quite exceed those of Ambrosio, the devastating consequences of her sinful acts result in long-lasting, deeply grievous repercussions. The novel takes a while to really come together. After seeing Ambrosio in his publicly sanctimonious guise and watching his pitiful descent into the passions and lusts inspired by Matilda, we spend a great deal of time becoming acquainted with Antonia, Agnes, and the gentlemen who love them and will eventually fight bravely to try and save them both physically and morally from their sad fates. The story of the Bleeding Nun apparition is an important part of this section of the book and gives the reader his first real introduction to the supernatural aspects of the story. It is almost possible to forget about Ambrosio completely for a time; when he returns to the story, however, he commits unspeakable acts and profanes the very name of the God he supposedly serves in such excess that he earns a permanent spot in the annals of literature's most despicable villains. It is in the crypts, among the moldering corpses of the dead, that the most blasphemous acts take place. Antonia's fate is quite horrible, but it is actually Agnes' tale of woe that takes the reader to the most horrific of extremes. Just when the worst seems to be over, we learn in graphic detail the almost unimaginable extent of the ordeal suffered by Agnes and her innocent child - the tale is quite gruesome even by today's standards, almost unimaginably so by those of Lewis' own time. The suffering of the innocent Agnes and Antonia is, in my opinion, unparalleled in the realm of Gothic horror. Even some critics who are less than found of the Gothic horror genre have embraced this novel, partly because it does distinguish itself from the more Romantic writings of an author such as Ann Radcliffe. As such, it seems less pretentious and much more visceral than the typical Gothic tome. Lewis holds nothing back in presenting his portrayal of evil in the hearts of men and women. There is a love story aspect to the events surrounding Agnes and Antonia, but the author does not indulge in flowery descriptions of love, nor does he concern himself with rapturous expositions on the beauty of nature. There is very little of beauty to be found in these pages at all, and what innocence exists is ultimately lost at the hands of corrupted servants of God. With such complexity underlying the plot, The Monk is open to a number of interpretations, and its microscopic portrayal of evil's power to overcome the best of men and women continues to fascinate and leave a lasting impression on one generation of readers after another. Even in our own time, The Monk is more than capable of shocking the reader with its unbridled revelations.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking and Astounding
Review: When I first picked up this book, I had no idea what to expect. I thought it would be long and stuffy like some of the books of its genere or mildly entertaining.
To my surprise, the writing was crisp, engaging and imaginative. I was amazed that the book was written in the late seventeen hundreds. Many images and situations created in the book are haunting and vividly imprint themselves onto ones imagination.
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