Editing Monastery (section)

== Monasteries in literature ==
[[Matthew Gregory Lewis|Matthew Lewis]]' 1796 Gothic Novel ''[[The Monk]]'' has as parts of its setting both a fictional monastery and nunnery in Spain at the time of the [[Spanish Inquisition|Inquisition]]. Many have interpreted Lewis' novel as a critique of [[Catholicism]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Watkins |first=Daniel P. |date=1986 |title=Social Hierarchy in Matthew Lewis's "the Monk" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29532407 |journal=Studies in the Novel |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=115–124 |jstor=29532407 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> [[Jane Austen]] sets the latter half of her 1818 novel ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'' in an out of use monastery, reflecting on [[Henry VIII]]'s abolition of monasticism in England and the contemporary abolition of monasticism in France in the wake of the [[French Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Moore |first=Roger E. |date=2011 |title=The Hidden History of Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen and the Dissolution of the Monasteries |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23049354 |journal=Religion & Literature |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=55–80 |jstor=23049354 |issn=0888-3769}}</ref> Convents for female monastics, or nunneries, were often portrayed as punishments for women unable or unwilling to marry.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rogers |first=Katharine M. |date=1985 |title=Fantasy and Reality in Fictional Convents of the Eighteenth Century |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40246570 |journal=Comparative Literature Studies |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=297–316 |jstor=40246570 |issn=0010-4132}}</ref> 

In the 1880 novel ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'', [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] was heavily inspired by real-life accounts of Orthodox monasticism. Parts of the novel focus in particular on the controversy surrounding the institution of "elderhood" in Orthodox Monasticism. Dostoyevsky's understanding of the tradition of elderhood is taken largely from ''Life of Elder Leonid of Optina'' by Father Kliment Zeder-gol'm, from which he quotes directly in chapter 5, book 1 of the Brother's Karamazov.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Stanton |first1=Leonard J. |last2=Zedergol'm |last3=Dostoevsky |date=1990 |title=Zedergol'm's Life of Elder Leonid of Optina As a Source of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/130525 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=443–455 |doi=10.2307/130525 |jstor=130525 |issn=0036-0341}}</ref> 

The 1980 historical novel [[The Name of the Rose]], by Italian author, philosopher, and [[Semiotics|semiotician]] [[Umberto Eco]] is set in a monastery in Italy in the year 1327, and the book creates a tableau of monastic life in the 14th century. It is an intellectual murder mystery; said to be a [[Postmodernist literature|postmodernist]] work, combining [[metanarrative]] and [[semiotics]] with biblical analysis and medieval studies. The narrative itself takes place at a [[Benedictine]] abbey during the controversy regarding the doctrines about the [[absolute poverty of Christ]] and [[apostolic poverty]] between branches of the [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] and [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] orders. The setting was inspired by the monumental [[Sacra di San Michele|Saint Michael's Abbey]] in [[Susa Valley]], Piedmont.