Episode 12.3: ‘The Monk’ by Matthew Lewis
It’s time for our Dark Academia adjacent title of the season! And we’re doing it in Gothic style. ‘The Monk’ is one of those books that both of us have wanted to read for a long time.
With acute psychological insight, Lewis shows the diabolical decline of Ambrosio, a worthy superior of the Capuchins of Madrid who is tempted by Matilda, a young girl who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy. Descending into a hell of his own creation, Ambrosio is driven to magic and murder in an attempt to conceal his crimes from the Inquisition. The Monk was greatly admired by the Marquis de Sade, who saw it as a response to the upheavals of the French Revolution, yet it also reveals something more universal: the way violent and erotic impulses lurking within us all can break through every barrier of social restraint.How is ‘We Love You, Bunny’ going to reframe our ideas of ‘Bunny’? How on earth will Awad follow up on her landmark fever dream novel?
In this episode we discuss:
The Gothic as a foundation that helps inform Dark Academia as a genre
The scandalous onslaught that is the wild plot of ‘The Monk’
The prevailing themes of sin, virtue, justice and faith
You can listen to it here:
TEXTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker
‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole
‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte
‘Queen of the Damned’ by Anne Rice
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