The Monk is one of the more lurid and "transgressive" of Gothic novels. It is also the first book to feature a priest as the villain. In this respect it would serve as a model for such future works of literature as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This novel shares a number of traits with Ann Radcliffe's gothic novels The Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho. Featuring demonic pacts, rape, incest, and such props as the Wandering Jew, ruined castles, and the Spanish Inquisition, The Monk serves more or less as a compendium of Gothic taste. Ambrosio, the hypocrite foiled by his own lust, and his sexual misconduct inside the walls of convents and monasteries, is a vividly portrayed villain, as well as an embodiment of much of the traditional English mistrust of Roman Catholicism, with its intrusive confessional, its political and religious authoritarianism, and its cloistered lifestyles...
- ISBN10 1085974138
- ISBN13 9781085974134
- Publish Date 29 July 2019 (first published 1 January 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Independently Published
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 366
- Language English