Abelard and Heloise sustained a reputation as great lovers for many centuries. Yet their romantic relationship was essentially over when they composed their famous correspondence; the very nature of their love affair remains unclear. Both Abelard and Heloise construct their past with common methodologies but different perspectives. In the Cambridge Companion to Abelard, Winthrop Wetherbee posits:Heloise had deliberately conjured up the spirit of the Historia in order to pit her intense humanity against the utter self-absorption of its author. Abelard had isolated himself within the epistolary conventions of consolation and apologia. Heloise, by radically personalizing and eroticizing the epistola ad amicum, will challenge him to engage in genuine dialogue.In the letters which follow, however, Abelard withdraws still further, persisting in his preoccupation with himself and addressing Heloise in the broadly homiletic manner of a spiritual advisor. (57)
[...] The second example is especially relevant to the discussion of Abelard and Heloise, since Samson's haircut serves as a symbolic castration within the Bible. As Heloise states: And that mighty man of the Lord, the Nazirite whose conception was announced by an angel, Delilah alone overcame; betrayed to his enemies and robbed of his sight, he was driven by his suffering to destroy himself along with his enemies(67). The passage is strange for many reasons. The Biblical text presents Samson's last act as heroic. [...]
[...] In his praise of strong Biblical women (including Judith, Esther, and Deborah) he waxes poetic for many lines and Jepthah's daughter provides a penultimate climax before the Madonna.In praise of heroic virgins who would not choose Jephthah's daughter? What would she have done, I ask, if she had faced martyrdom? Would she have denied Would she, when asked about Christ, have replied like Peter the prince of the apostles: know him not." By her death, Jephthah's daughter liberated her father from perjuring himself. [...]
[...] Although one is tempted to read this as Heloise again declaring her passionate feelings for Abelard, it is more likely a traditional statement against the sin of pride, the very sin that Abelard blames for his initial downfall. In Letter Abelard disregards the passionate tone of Heloise's letters and rationally argues that she should accept her fate with joy. The last three letters in the collection suggest that Abelard has convinced Heloise to forsake any hope of renewed affections beyond the pious. Heloise does not speak again of the past. In letter six, Heloise asks for guidance in running a monastic order, and Abelard spends letters seven & eight giving that guidance. [...]
[...] In a letter that climaxes with "men call me chaste but they do not know what a hypocrite I am" Heloise in rapid succession cites Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in their admonishment to avoid wicked women and then proceeds to name the women of the Bible that brought men into desolation: Eve, Delilah, Solomon's pagan wife, and Job's wife. She concludes this rather misogynist paragraph by stating that Satan "tempted you [Abelard or all men] through marriage when he could not destroy you through fornication"(67). [...]
[...] "The Ethiopian Woman" In Letter Five, Abelard uses the third biblical text ascribed to Solomon in response to Heloise, who has already used Proverbs and Ecclesiastes as arguments against Abelard's praise of women. Whereas Jephthah's daughter is used as an analogy to Abelard's situation, his use of the "Ethiopian Woman" from Song of Songs (Song of Solomon, The Canticles) is solely aimed towards Heloise. According to Abelard, the woman that describes herself as "black, but lovely" (Song is ugly to outward appearances, but smoother of skin, therefore a queen in the bed chamber. [...]
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