Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

case of the late eighteenth century, these institutions were no other than the literati as well
as prominent writers and critics such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, who were marshaling the cultural ideals of taste and value, while the
immediate context for the reception of The Monk was one of intense literary production
and commercialization occurring at a particularly frenzied era in Europe, where the fear
of a Jacobin revolution in England was spurred by the recent events in neighboring
France. Nevertheless, as society and culture change, so do the critical paradigms through
which literary works are read, distributed and reappraised by subsequent generations of
readers, critics, and scholars. Hence, through a series of major paradigms shifts in
thought, taste and value, the cultural capital of texts such as The Monk has been
continuously reevaluated. As Hans Robert Jauss puts it:
The relationship of literature and reader has aesthetic as well as
historical implications. The aesthetic implication lies in the fact
that the first reception of a work by the reader includes a test of its
aesthetic value in comparison with works already read. The
obvious historical implication of this is that the understanding of
the first reader will be sustained and enriched in a chain of
reception from generation to generation; in this way the historical
significance of a work will be decided and its aesthetic value made
evident. (1551-2)
This chapter proposes to review the canonization processes and cultural exchanges that
affected Lewis’ novel dating from its publication to the present, and the ways in which,
through a subsequent series of similar negotiations it affected them in return. It first
addresses the reception of the Gothic novel as a genre before situating The Monk as a
landmark text within this tradition. More precisely, this study demonstrates that Lewis
made particular use of some characteristic transgressive elements to contrast them with
other works of the Gothic genre and particularly the texts of Ann Radcliffe. Next, by
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