Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775 - 1818) | The Monk
The Monk
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (REVIEW DATE FEBRUARY 1797)
SOURCE: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "A review of The Monk." The Critical Review 19 (February 1797): 194-200.
In the following excerpt from a review of The Monk, Coleridge acknowledges Lewis's genius but objects to what he perceives as The Monk's indecency, immorality, and irreligious air.
[Cheaply] as we estimate romances in general, we acknowledge, [The Monk: a Romance], the offspring of no common genius…. Ambrosio, a monk, surnamed the Man of Holiness, proud of his own undeviating rectitude, and severe to the faults of others, is successfully assailed by the tempter of mankind, and seduced to the perpetration of rape and murder, and finally precipitated into a contract in which he consigns his soul to everlasting perdition.
The larger part of the three volumes is occupied by the underplot, which,...
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