The Monk, despite its cleverness, is essentially immature, yet it is not a childish work.  It is much less youthful, for instance, than Shelley’s Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne.  The inflamed imagination, the violent exaggeration of emotion and of character, the jeering cynicism and lack of tolerance, the incoherent formlessness, are all indications of adolescence.  In The Monk there are two distinct stories, loosely related.  The story of Raymond and Agnes, into which the legends of the bleeding nun and Wandering Jew are woven with considerable skill, was published more than once as a detached and separate work.  It is concerned with the fate of two unhappy lovers, who are parted by the tyranny of their parents and of the church, and who endure manifold agonies.  The physical torture of Agnes is described in revolting detail, for Lewis has no scruple in carrying the ugly far beyond the limits within which it is artistic.  The happy ending of their harrowing story is incredible.  By making Ambrosio, on the verge of his hideous crimes, harshly condemn Agnes for a sin of the same nature as that which he is about to commit, Lewis forges a link between the two stories.  But the connection is superficial, and the novel suffers through the distraction of our interest.  In the story of Ambrosio, Antonia plays no part in her own downfall.  She is as helpless as a plaster statue demolished by an earthquake.  The figure of Matilda has more vitality, though Lewis changes his mind about her character during the course of the book, and fails to make her early history consistent with the ending of his story.  She is certainly not in league with the devil, when, in a passionate soliloquy, she cries to Ambrosio, whom she believes to be asleep:  “The time will come when you will be convinced that my passion is pure and disinterested.  Then you will pity me and feel the whole weight of my sorrows.”  But when the devil appears, he declares to Ambrosio: 

“I saw that you were virtuous from vanity, not principle, and I seized the fit moment for your seduction.  I observed your blind idolatry of the Madonna’s picture.  I bade a subordinate but crafty spirit assume a similar form, and you eagerly yielded to the blandishments of Matilda.”

The discrepancy is obvious, but this blemish is immaterial, for the whole story is unnatural.  The deterioration in Ambrosio’s character—­though Lewis uses all his energy in striving to make it appear probable by discussing the effect of environment—­is too swift.

Lewis is at his best when he lets his youthful, high spirits have full play.  His boyish exaggeration makes Leonella, Antonia’s aunt, seem like a pantomime character, who has inadvertently stepped into a melodrama, but the caricature is amusing by its very crudity.  She writes in red ink to express “the blushes of her cheek,” when she sends a message of encouragement to the Conde d’Ossori.  This and other puerile jests are more tolerable than