Historia Calamitatum, a consolation letter written circa 1132 CE, portrays the life of a decidedly obnoxious man by the name of Peter Abelard. Within the first few pages, the reader is introduced to the egotistical author in such a way that leaves little room for a sympathetic audience. Most would say that this man is so insolent that he could not possibly present himself in a favorable light. That being said, one could also argue that Abelard wrote the letter to repent of his transgressions; after all, components of the letter sound more like a confession than a tale of woe. While both theories are immensely supported by evidence found in the text, neither argument takes into account Abelard’s pure genius and desire to ameliorate his peers. …show more content…
To hear someone who is presumed to be this very arrogant and egotistical character write about himself in such a repulsive manner is rather shocking. He even admits that he is bothersome when he declared, “On several occasions I spoke out boldly in criticism of their intolerably foul practices, both in private and in public, and made myself such a burden and nuisance to them all that they gladly seized on the daily importunities of my pupils as a pretext for having me removed from their midst” (19). Abelard’s aggravating qualities don’t end there. He seems to have a mightier-than-thou attitude that makes him a highly disagreeable character. His attitude towards Anselm of Laon is disparaging at the very least. He depicts him as kindling a fire that “filled his house with smoke but did not light it up” and as the cursed fig tree (7). He doesn’t seem to treat Heloise much better. He describes her as not ranking the lowest in looks and believed her to be an easy conquest (10). He also doesn’t shy from using physical threats to get what he wants (11), and he never takes Heloise’s thoughts into consideration when he demands that they get married (14). Even so, Abelard occasionally lapses into an almost deplorable state of self-depreciation throughout the letter. In one instance he writes, “I began to think myself the only philosopher in the world, with nothing to fear …show more content…
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
In the light of Germanicus’ death, Caligula’s family had drifted out of the heart of Tiberius, who then saw the brothers, sisters, and mother of Caligula to be rivals. He accused all of such of treason. To which they all were either exiled, or imprisoned. Thus was the death of the family – all except “little boots”, himself.
Hester is a committer of the sin adultery. She receives a letter with an A on it, which is meant to represent her sin. Hester is free to go wherever she wants with her letter, but she decides to stay within the boundaries of her Puritan town: “Kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement...” (Hawthorne 73). Hester has a newfound sense of pride in the letter she wears, even though that letter is her reason for her own personal condemnation. She doesn 't have any restrictive boundaries, but she feels like her letter is that line that keeps her in her town where she will constantly be judged by others. Constantly criticized, evaluated, and assessed. Hester appears to have a negative mental state caused by her mental condemnation due to the adverse diction when she’s addressed through use of words such as sin, dark, or inscrutable. As her condemnation continues on, she (unlike Jake) changes her subjective thoughts into ones that represent pride and acceptiveness. She turns her views on life into ones that are happier and more accepting, since she has already gone through so much. Condemnation often changes how one might go through processes mentally, but those do not always have to be awful. Most see the restrictiveness in the actions of being condemned, yet new ideologies on how one
Lawrence creates a sarcastic tone throughout his essay to exhibit Hester’s iniquitous behavior. He utilizes the biblical story of Cain and Abel to describe how “this time it is Mr. Dimmesdale who dies [while Hester] lives on and is Abel” (Lawrence). Lawrence mocks Hawthorne’s depiction of Hester by calling her Abel, which is ironic because Abel was the victim of the story. The sarcastic tone portrays Hester as a complete divergence to Abel, who was faithful to God and trustworthy. This tone also urges the readers to examine Hester and conclude that she goes not have these morally good characteristics like faithfulness and trustworthiness. Lawrence claims that placing Prynne on the scaffolding and exploiting her sins will “[become] a farce” (Lawrence). His mocking tone underscores the severity of adultery, which Hawthorne falsely describes Hester’s transgression as a “farce”. Lawrence’s use of sarcasm implies that her sins were substantial and grave. This conveys to the readers that Hester is a deplorable character and was portrayed wrongly by
More broadly, it is possible to see the opposition between "guilt" and "shame" as representative of a larger tension in early modern thought between Christian and p...
Abelard was a well-known figure of the twelfth century that taught dialectic philosophy. Abelard was in his late thirties when he first met Heloise in Paris. And it was her knowledge and gift for writing letters, which was so rare in women at the times that attracted Abelard to her. Heloise was the niece of one of the Cannons. She was about seventeen when she met Abelard; this was not considered a big deal for back then it was pretty common to have big age difference in marriages. Heloise was considered atypical because women were rarely educated at all back then. She was strong willed and she had a pretty good sense of logic and this is what brought them together. Heloise struck a deal with Heloise's uncle to educate her and gained full access to her pleasures. Their relationship encompassed the maximum in personal freedom. "Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired and then with our books open before us, more words of our love than of our reading passed between us, and more kissing than teaching. (Radice 67). Later Heloise became pregnant and Abelard could not successfully sidestep the rules of the society because the society of a time just wouldn't accept a premarital sexual affair.
Contrary to Hawthorne’s perspective, Lawrence emphasizes that Hester is corrupt rather than the Puritan society. Although there are various portrayals of Hester, Lawrence focuses on Hester’s mortal sin rather than its consequences and therefore claims that her sin is unforgivable. He persuades his audience that Hawthorne’s portrayal
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In both “Roger Malvin's Burial” and “The Minister's Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne centralizes the themes of sin, guilt, and repentance. Both are very much set in terms of what defines sin and, in turn, what would constitute action leaving an opening for forgiveness, and both leave many a question unanswered in the story being told. The main question for us becomes, then, one of applicability. Does either story hold a message, if so, what? In considering the two, it may be that they do indeed hold a message, but maybe that message is not one that Hawthorne himself could ever have intended. In this paper I will deal with the themes of guilt, sin, repentance and how Hawthorne developed them in both stories.
...ifestyle of the relationship between Abelard and Heloise. If the two were truly in love, then they would fight to stay together rather than give up themselves to a higher being or to what society was asking for in the way of how a relationship should be defined religiously. If Abelard and Heloise were truly in love, even the Church would be unable to separate the two.
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.
Heichelheim, Fritz, Cedric A. Yeo, and Allen M. Ward. A History Of The Roman People. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1984.
Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.
Augustine. “Confessions”. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1113-41. Print.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1843 short story entitled “The Birth-Mark” is, at face value, a traditionally formatted Hawthorne story; it is a textbook example of his recurrent theme of the unpardonable sin as committed by the primary character, Aylmer, the repercussions of which result in the untimely death of his wife, Georgiana. However, there seems to be an underlying theme to the story that adds a layer to Hawthorne’s common theme of the unpardonable sin; when Aylmer attempts to reconcile his intellectual prowess with his love for his wife, his efforts turn into an obsession with perfecting his wife’s single physical flaw and her consequent death. This tragedy occurs within the confines of traditional gender
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorn makes a commentary on the hypocrisy in the Puritan life style through his portrayal of his characters Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s adored Puritan priest, and Hester Prynne, the ostracized sinner. Throughout the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorn depicts traits that contradict the Puritan’s ideas of how a defiled sinner and a proper Puritan priest should behave by the social conventions of their time. The author does this by illustrating Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be a righteous and holy person, as a sinful and cowardly man. Dimmesdale is also show to be a naive individual who is oblivious to the ever present danger that surrounds him. He is a complete contradiction to commonly held image of the honorable and holy priest. And the character who is portrayed as a righteous and selfless helper is the adulteress Hester Prynne, the woman whom the Puritan people detest for her sin. Hester is also shown to be a confident and strong character, a