The Letters of Abelard and Heloise: A Relevant Field of Literary Criticism
The letters exchanged between Abelard and Heloise date back over 900 years, but they are still very relevant in the field of literary criticism today. The letters discuss some intricate topics in the two's lives after they met.
The Metaphysical Significance of Abelard and Heloise's Meeting
From a metaphysical standpoint, it is clear that if Abelard and Heloise had not met in their lives, their destinies and life circumstances would have followed a radically different path than the one described. Nonetheless, the birth of their child, Astrolabe, altered the two's fates and perspectives on life.
A Closer Review of Abelard and Heloise's Letters
A closer review of Abelard and Heloise's letters is discussed in this article. This study identifies Abelard’s love for Heloise as the most important event in his life afterward and consequently, a game changer in their future lives. Although they both have different opinions about this event, it plays a critical role in defining their future.
The Romantic Affair Between Abelard and Heloise
From the beginning, it is apparently clear that Heloise’s intentions concerning their affair weren’t to engage in sexual intercourse. Such practices as Mew highlights were strictly outlawed and considered shameful acts. Sexual respect was closely monitored although romance existed between people of different sexes. Despite this knowledge, their lust and desires of the body overpower their conscience, intelligence, and learning, forcing them to have an early affair. This romantic affair between Abelard and Heloise is considered in this essay as the most important one in the lives of the two due to the role it plays in their lives after that. As commonly argued, the outcome of any love affair is the conception of a child, and so is the case in the affair between Abelard and Heloise.
The Birth of Astrolabe: Changing Destinies
At the time when Astrolabe was born, Abelard and Heloise had not married officially. This meant that Astrolabe was an illegitimate child at his birth. That the birth of Astrolabe changed the destinies of the two is a matter that has received tremendous and varied reactions from scholarly analyses. In fact, having left their child at Brittany, Abelard and Heloise rarely wrote about him or referred to him in their letters. Many have argued that Abelard was an irresponsible father to Astrolabe, and so does Heloise. Perhaps this was because of their new specialties (as a nun and a monk) which restricted both from having a child leave alone the knowledge of them having been in a marriage before.
The Selfish Motive Behind Abelard's Love for Heloise
Right from the beginning, Heloise opposed the affair between her and Abelard, although she knew that she was equally in love with him. Consequently, she tells him off unwillingly, and when he insists on not taking no as an option, she gives in, and they engage in premarital sex. Abelard does not realize at the beginning that his move to love Heloise was guided by a selfish motive. Until later, after the birth of Astrolabe, Abelard confesses having been led by selfishness other than reason; to quench his sexual desires for Heloise. It is unusual that a man of great learning and a renowned philosopher would be misguided by his conscience. His later move to abandon the child was a clear manifestation of his earlier dismayed reasoning. These facts are reflected in Abelard’s total neglect of Heloise and Astrolabe soon after he is castrated and did not possess any sexual capability.
Unconventional Choices: Abelard's Age and his Role as a Father
It was unusual for the 12th-century Christian Europe for a man to make such choices as Abelard did. Moreover, at the time when he had an affair with Heloise, Abelard was not an ordinary youth. He was well advanced in age (34 years to be exact) compared to Heloise who was only nineteen at the time. According to the popular belief, Abelard was reasonably mature at this time than Heloise. He was capable of making rational decisions to save his reputation, and that of Heloise and her family but fails to do so. His main aim is to satisfy his sexual urge, and when the urge is taken away, he has nothing to do with Heloise or their child.
The Different Perspectives on Their Affair: Heloise's Positivity
On most occasions, Heloise has repeatedly reaffirmed her position towards their affair, maintaining that what matters are the inner emotions and feelings that they had for one another. She is not as sorry as Abelard appears to be later in his life. These repetitions are a remarkable reassurance to Heloise’s positivity in her decision to love Abelard. Consequently, Abelard’s regrets are an indication of his sorry state resulting from his misinformed decision to engage in the affair. Clearly, from the letters exchanged between the two, it is evident the path they took following the romantic affair. Abelard lives in fear that the revelation of his past affair with Heloise and the truth about his child would harm his current reputation. Surely, these circumstances influenced his life delaying his anointing as a monk when he is accused of immorality before a tribunal.
Conclusion
The letters of Abelard and Heloise are some of the most remarkable works of the ancient English society which have elicited mixed criticisms from various analysts. The letters illustrate occasional exchanges between the two love birds narrating their circumstances and the situations they are subjected to in their subsequent lives. Emerging as the most remarkable event in the life of Abelard is his affair with Heloise, a scenario that changes his life significantly. Although Abelard remains sorry, ashamed of his past, Heloise is positive concerning the affair and the entire events which culminated after that.
Bibliography
McLeod, Glenda. “Wholly guilty, wholly innocent’: Self-Definition in Heloise’s Letters to Abelard”. Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre (1993): 64-86.
Mew, Constant. The lost love letters of Heloise and Abelard: perceptions of dialogue in twelfth-century France. New York: Springer, 2008.
Nye, Andrea. “A Woman’s Thought or a Man’s Discipline? The Letters of Abelard and Heloise”. Hypatia 7, no. 3 (1992): 1-22.
