Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

different generations of readers that Jauss’ epigraph would seem particularly to the point.
This idea closely echoes the notion of Harold Bloom’s “pragmatic test for the canonical”
(226) as explained in the first chapter; the idea which considers that a work only reveals
its full potential if it transcends the specific contextualization of its date of publication.
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As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the more general term of
“romance” was applied to describe the novels that are now considered Gothic. This
affiliation contributed to the negative appraisal of these works, for it was assumed that
they shared the same faults and defects traditionally attributed to romance. In contrast,
the fact that, as Watt points out, “Gothic Romance as a descriptive category is the product
of twentieth century literary criticism” implies how literary studies have reshaped the
perception of the Gothic and its most prominent writers. As a matter of fact, the
discipline has affected the evaluation of the Gothic—and, in particular Lewis’ novel—on
two levels. On the one hand, the Gothic tradition as a whole has undergone a historical
reconstruction that has given way to a critical reappraisal of its place and status in literary
history. On the other, the advent of new critical approaches and textual negotiations have
considerably “opened up” novels such as The Monk, and have conferred and explored
new meanings and applications that have been previously overlooked.
The multiple paradigm shifts of the twentieth century have fostered the creation of
a multitude of critical theories and approaches for the analysis of literary texts.
Concurrently, critics and theorists from these various schools have reappraised the
literary values and historical contributions of the Gothic. Gamer points out that in the
twentieth century, critical work has argued for the Gothic “as container of multiple
meanings or as mediator between high art and mass culture” and that it is no longer