Jayeola Gloria Apapa
HIS 121 AA
November 13th, 2015 Abelard and Heloise: The Personal is History
The mutual passion between Abelard and Heloise was very brief, yet it drastically changed the course of their lives, setting both on a path of struggle and suffering. Heloise was renowned for her intellect and extensive knowledge of Latin, logic and philosophy which, at the time, was rather unusual for a woman. Abelard, on the other hand, was one of the most influential philosophers and theologians of the twelfth century. Their enduring fame, however, rests upon the letters they wrote to each other and to others which documented their ill-fated relationship for posterity. These letters, written over a decade after their affair ended, trace
…show more content…
Again, he was unimpressed by Anselm's teaching. In response to a dare, Abelard began to offer a series of lectures on the Book of Ezekiel. These lectures became wildly popular. Anselm’s felt his authority as head of the school was being threatened, and he forced Abelard to leave. Despite his lack of official credentials, Abelard began teaching theology, and became even more renowned throughout Paris.
In the “Historia Calamitatum”, Abelard portrays the academic community in Paris as vibrant extremely competitive, and rife with jealousy. According to him, William’s unconcealed jealousy got him the support of William’s enemies (Letter 1, 4). “Anselm,” he writes, “was now wildly jealous…and by the suggestions of some of his pupils he began to attack me for lecturing on the Scriptures in the same way as my master William had done previously over philosophy” (Letter 1, 8).
From his letter, we also sense that great importance was placed on education— especially in Latin, religion, and philosophy— during the middle ages. Being a philosopher or a member of the clergy was a prestigious occupation. Abelard had a huge following of students, and thousands gathered to hear his lectures. In short, he was a 12th century version of a modern
…show more content…
After reading a copy of Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum, Heloise reestablished contact with Abelard by sending him a letter. In her first letter, she chastises him for not writing to her during their long separation (Letter 2, 53). Heloise also accused Abelard of not loving her: “It was desire, not affection which bound you to me, the flame of lust rather than love. So when the end came to what you desired, any show of feeling you used to make went with it. This is not merely my opinion, beloved, it is everyone’s” (Letter 2, 53). In one of her letters, she writes very frankly about her sexual frustration.
In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet— they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn, they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not let me sleep. Even during the celebration of Mass, when our prayers should be purer, lewd visions of those pleasures take such hold of my unhappy soul….Even in sleep I know no respite. Sometimes my thoughts are betrayed in a movement, of my body, or they break out in an unguarded word (Letter 4,
The achievements and expertise of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Hildegard of Bingen were similar in that both contributed to literature. Although Eleanor of Aquitaine was often up to her knees in political affairs, nevertheless found time to cultivate the arts and patronize literature (Lindenmuth, 2005, p.1). At the royal court at Poitiers, she dedicated much of her money toward the patronage of all kinds of rising artists in all areas, but she’s best known for promoting the troubadours and romance writers (Lindenmuth, 2005, p.1). Eleanor herself greatly contributed to the rules of courtly love (Au, p.1), whose key features became humility, courtesy, and adultery (Delahoyde, Courtly Love, p.1), but her main contributions to literature were indirect.
"...If then true lovers have been ever crossed...as due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs..." (1.1. 152, 156)
sexual imagery as a rhetorical tool to arouse the reader. The result of this is congruent emotions within poet and
The relationship between Peter Abelard and Heloise failed to be established with strong bonds between the young couple, allowing lust to be the sole, capricious foundation of the relationship. Peter Abelard was a 12th century philosopher who after beginning to lecture on the Scriptures began to gain more notoriety throughout France and much of Europe. This newfound fame soon developed into conceit, Abelard thinking himself “the only philosopher in the world” (Historia Calamitatum 9). This attitude gave way to a lifestyle of flesh, prostitutes, and inability to focus on philosophy. Peter Abelard met Heloise, a young woman with great promise of being a student, while traveling through Paris (9). Rather than establishing a relationship based on a strong foundation, Abelard bases his interest on Heloise through more extraneous factors; Abelard bases ...
This poem dramatizes the conflict between love and lust, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say about last night. In the poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds, the narrator uses symbolism and sexual innuendo to reflect on her lust for her partner from the night before. The narrator refers to her night by stating, “Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon.” (2, 3) She describes it as being not as great as she imagined it to be and not being love, but lust. Olds uses lust, sex and symbolism as the themes in the story about “Last night”.
While many people can spend too much time focused on others and not their own needs, “Sex Without Love” by Sharon Olds fails in its attempt to rectify such behavior. The poem’s claim that pleasure should be one’s sole focus and that each person is ultimately alone in the world do not answer all of ____________.
In this brief monograph, we shall be hunting down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/Renaissance thought. Among these are the fierce lion of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of fantastic peacocks, one of vanity, one of preening social status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as pride, while the lamb is of an entirely different, in fact antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from palace to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the perfumed lady's chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick.
While true love is treasured when achieved, its rarity can be attributed to the multitude of obstacles lovers must face. Couples often have trouble expressing their love for one another or may face challenges within the marriages. Whether it be disagreements, affection of surroundings, friendships lost, or jealousy, the quest for true love has its consequences. This concept is expressed several times in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, in the cases of many of the lovers. However, it can be argued that although complications ensue, true love is worth a life of trouble.
Regardless of how terribly Abelard declared he treated Heloise, she obviously deeply loved him. He recounts that she felt that “only love freely given should keep me for her, not the constriction of marriage ties, and if we had to be parted for a time, we should find the joy of being together all the sweeter the rarer our meeting were” (16). Abelard also had quite a large following of students for someone who treated others so terribly. Even when he lived in the wilderness of Troyes, his followers came and lived around him so that they could learn from him (28). Since Heloise, a highly intelligent woman, and his many educated students felt he was someone worth spending time with, it would come to reason that Abelard is not nearly as bad of a person as he is portraying. Why, then, does he depict himself in such a terrible manner? It appears that Abelard might be seeking penance, but from whom? He never outright addresses this, which would seem to refute the idea that it is an apology. So what is this letter, then? In the final pages, he begins to speak on how righteous men should not bemoan trials set before them by God (43). In a way, he is saying that he has repented and is now living a righteous life. By naming his enemies and drawing their attention to this text that reads like an apology to an unidentified person, he is essentially telling them how they must repent by
Published in 1761, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s revision of the legend of a famous pair of medieval star-crossed lovers, Heloise and Abelard, titled (Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse) Julie, or the New Heloise : Letters of Two Lovers Who Live In A Small Town At The Foot Of The Alps (referred to as Julie while naming the novel and JOTNH in in-text citations from now on) was extremely popular as well as controversial due to its transgressive content, notably the intense love affair between a young noble woman and her tutor. Although this is the primary theme of this epistolary sentimental, the language of sentiment and virtue serves as vehicle for Rousseau’s ideas on many topics such as politics, family, marriage, nobility, education, religion, morality,
Those who commit the offense of having sex without love are solitary creatures - like lone runners, skaters, dancers - whose pleasure comes from a partner who is simply a “factor” (21), and share only in their own euphoria. Through use of simile, metaphor, and literal and figurative language, Sharon Olds reveals her disgust of those who make love without love, and also a somewhat aesthetic awe at the majesty of the act.
Abelard was an outstanding and dubious man that got a kick out of debating with his teachers. He further decided that he did not want to transform into a knight like his father. Therefore, he looked in the direction of being a rationalist
The act of sex is one that has puzzled philosophers for centuries and for good reason. It is a complicated subject that has had many different definitions and parameters throughout history. Alan Goldman holds that “sexual desire is the desire for contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent” (Soble, 83). Greta Christina, through her many personal experiences and multiple re-examinations of her supposed sexual encounters, does not think she or anyone else can truly define what is sex (Christina, 26-30). In a different angle, Alan Soble has difficulty producing an accurate, all-encompassing definition of masturbation, despite six attempts (79-82). These three great minds, and many
According to Chartier, there is evidence that the author served a functional role in the reading of texts in Medieval Europe (31, 59). Foucault acknowledges that in the Middle Ages, anonymous authorship of “literary” texts was common, while the veracity of scientific texts was judged by the authority of the text’s author (31).
When the concept of love and passion come up in literature, oftentimes the immediate reaction of a reader is one of identification or distance with the work. Love and passion are intimate and thus difficult to render universally in the external world, with the ineffectiveness of language, social and cultural impasses, and a multitude of other issues creating an “otherness” to the literary representation of the love/passion phenomena. The representation of love however, often hides within subtleties that transcend social constructs, or even perceived reality. In Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, we are exposed to, as the book cover explains “love stripped of all of its cliché’s and categories” through ornate metaphor in a real and gripping manner. But also the effectiveness lies within Winterson’s deconstruction of societal and ideological views, which demonstrate how the unconscious impressions of modern ideology regarding love and desire cause immense conflict within one’s self, leading to a passionate anxiety, or also repression of desires through objectification of memory, as the fulfillment of our desires inevitably leads to the expression of mortality, e.g. all human emotions, even love, come to a logical end.