Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

and the name of its author was revealed (Watt 93, Gamer 74). This initial praise of The
Monk was short-lived and was superseeded by a series of considerably more negative
reviews that were triggered partly by the increasing anxieties regarding the ever-growing
popularity of the Gothic and German-influenced romances amongst an undisciplined
reading public and partly by its perceived obscenity and lack of moral framework.
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Being a “romance,” as its subtitle declares, The Monk was categorically excluded
from “serious” critical consideration and possible canonization; it was considered to
belong to a brand of escapist fiction, which was categorized as a “low,” popular,
contemptible, and an unimportant—or, in a word, vulgar—form of cultural production.
Because of its affiliation with the romance genre, it was thought to contribute to the
commercialization of literature by capitalizing on the demands of an uneducated
audience, but, as Watt points out, “what was largely at stake in the negative reviews of
The Monk, especially, was the regulation of cultural production itself” (84).
Nevertheless, Lewis’ novel was not only deemed to embody the most commonly voiced
objections regarding the publication and distribution of Gothic-type romances but also
collected considerable negative reactions because the “boldness,” for which it was
originally praised, was later perceived as being immoral and seditious. The unadulterated
accounts of rape, incest, violence, and murder were perceived to break social taboos, and
the novel was labeled as obscene and immoral, capable of corrupting the minds of an
immature and unsuspecting audience. In addition, The Monk’s strong Germanic
influences—and more specifically, the “horror” aesthetic of the Shauer-Romantik—were
considered to contribute to both the vulgarization of taste and the promotion of
subversive “revolutionary” ideas. In other words, Lewis’ novel contains a number of