Final answer:
Wuthering Heights received mixed critical responses, with contemporary reviewers criticizing it as immoral, but later scholars recognizing its importance to the feminist movement.
Step-by-step explanation:
Wuthering Heights received a mix of critical responses when it was first published. While a few contemporary reviewers recognized its merit, the majority criticized the book as immoral and unseemly. It was censored and called 'pure poison,' and the author, Kate Chopin, faced backlash from critics.
However, in the late twentieth century, scholars rediscovered Chopin's work, and it became recognized as vital to the early feminist movement.
Contemporary scholars have approached Wuthering Heights with various critical lenses, including reader-response criticism, which focuses on personal reactions to the text and the emotions it evokes.
Others have applied historical and sociocultural analysis to better understand the novel's context and its reflection of Victorian society. As a result, Wuthering Heights has secured a place as a complex and significant work within the canon of English literature.