Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

Nominal Anglicanism or Protestantism. She partly draws her observations from
Coleridge’s review of the novel, arguing that “Coleridge’s reading suggests a form of
nominal Anglicanism haunted by a paranoid fear that it cannot separate itself from its
diabolical other.” She notes that in the aftermath of the French revolution, which sent
institutions of power such as the clergy trembling in fear, “Lewis’ text offers … an
uncomfortable blend of Protestant anti-Catholicism with French revolutionary anti-
Catholicism.” On the other hand, there is very little evidence in the text that Lewis
wanted to single out the Catholic religion and condemn it specifically 13 . What Lewis is
doing it seems—and this would justify the indignation of the critics and reviewers—is
that in aligning himself with the beliefs of the French revolution, as suggested above, he
is rebelling against clerical authority, whether Protestant or Catholic, because it
represents a despotic and totalitarian form of institutional power.
128
But it was particularly with regard to obscenity that Lewis’ novel was put on trial
because it was considered to have breached the law. As Gamer points out, “The Monk’s
supposed celebration of [obscenity] produced the bulk of the legal threats that swirled
around Lewis between 1796 and 1803” (79). To that regard, he also notes that “any
publication judged by British legal authorities after 1727 to be obscene and to display a
tendency to corrupt the morals and manners of the general population could be
suppressed and prosecuted for obscene libel” (80). In an observation that closely
resembles previous discussions regarding the incorporation of obscene material in
literature and the difference between “sexual content” and “pornography,” Gamer argues
13 As a matter of fact, the word “Catholic” only appears once in the entire novel, when Theodore, wanting
to uncover what has become of Agnes for the sake of Don Raymond, is admitted into the convent of St.
Clare as a beggar. As he is eating, the nuns take a liking to him and observe that “he would be a worthy
pillar of the Catholic church (284).