The monk (1796): a hispanist's reading

Abigail Lee Six

doi:10.5007/2175-8026.2012n62p25

Abstract

This article argues that the honour plays of seventeenth-centurySpain have been overlooked as precursors to the Gothic. ReadingLewis’s The Monk through this prism reveals that Spanishconcept of honour plays sheds light upon the characterization ofAmbrosio. Furthermore, the honour code gives rise to numerousareas of common ground with the Gothic, including the centralityof sexual secrets, imprisoned women, and a predilection forgore. Lewis’s opportunities for access to this Spanish corpus areconsidered and finally, it is posited that the post-eighteenthcenturyfigure of the Gothic villain who is troubled and complexmay be traceable, via The Monk, to the Spanish Golden Age.

Highlights

This article argues that the honour plays of seventeenth-century Spain have been overlooked as precursors to the Gothic
This article will explore these resonances with reference to The Monk so as to establish whether there are sufficient grounds to consider Spanish Golden Age honour drama as a new body of precursor texts to the Gothic mode
We know how widely read Don Quixote was in the eighteenth century right across Europe including Britain, demonstrating awareness of Spanish Golden Age cultural production abroad4 and what might be termed the Quixote effect is easy to find in Gothic texts, including The Monk, which has references to the text itself (Lewis 6) and to several romances of knight errantry which are mentioned in Don Quixote (Lewis 259)

Summary

Introduction

When a Hispanist reads The Monk in particular, it is the honour plays of the Golden Age that spring to mind most readily, leading to the questions that this article will examine: whether and if so, how Matthew Lewis might have had any contact with classical Spanish drama; which elements of this genre prefigure Gothic features found in The Monk; where the two part company and the effect of those divergences; and the extent to which the representation of Spain in this novel, the Catholic Church, does or does not chime with Spanish literary production, on the one hand, and other Gothic texts on the other.

Results

Conclusion