Heloise And Abelard: A Twelfth Century Love Story [Paperback]

 

 

Create your own review

James Burge's carefully thought out account covers so much: the politics of church and state, who's in who's out; the prevailing sentiment around love and marriage and appropriate standards of behaviour; the personalities of the key figures as expressed by their actions. Best of all he takes huge pleasure from Heloise's writing and her profound humanity, and analyses and expounds her viewpoint very well. He puts a very moving story into a clearly drawn historical context, if only all history was written with such charm. The only thing missing is the complete text of Heloise's letters which I must now rush out and buy.

James Burge's uptodate examination of the lives and letters of the twelfth century tragic lovers, Heloise and Abelard, is a superb piece of scholarship. With an examination of both the original attributed letters and the excerpts now identified as from their original love letters collated by Johannes de Vepria and first revealed by Constant Mews in 1999, Burge takes us through the known lives of the two ill-fated lovers whilst continually instructing the reader on twelfth century european monastic life and the firm secular power that the Church weilded through its canonical law.
The story of Abelard and Heloise (he the greatest logiical philosopher of his age, she a brilliant classical scholar some ten years his junior) who fall in love whilst she studies under him in Paris, their subsequent hasty and secretive marriage, the birth of their child Astralabe, Aberlard's subsequent castration by Heloise envious uncle, Fulbert and their enforced separation to the Orders and literary reconciliation, has echoed down the ages.
The Romeo and Juliet of its time, the erudite, first hand accounts of an altogether human love between two great intellectuals opens up the world of twelfth century europe to us in a way that is priceless. As Burge correctly comments fairly early in the text, the concept of the period being part of the medieval ages and pre-renaissance is farcical in the evidence of the Parisian centres of learning that Abelard founded and taught at.
Drawing heavily on the texts, Burge gives us an insight into the personalities of both, showing Abelard as that brilliant, yet socially aggressive, scholar, Heloise as his intellectually equal, yet through what modern terms would denote as `true love', utterly under his charming spell right to the end.
The primary source material consists of eight letters, opening with a letter from Aberlard to an unknown correspondent in response to several meetings he has had, putting down what is almost an autobiography. The letter (or a copy) makes its way to Heloise who writes a reply, thus reopening communication between the two. Whilst the opening 200 pages refer heavily to the first letter of each, as Burge's biography catches up with Aberlard's abscondment from St Denis and sojourn near St Troyes at Paraclete then the remaining six letters come into force. Ableard's papal-acknowledged bestowal on Paraclete to Heloise to found her abbey means that the two came into contact and through the letters we are able to see Heloise 'force' Abelard to acknowledge that he is her first true love and her taking the veil was enforced by him upon her.
Burge now continues to move through the later stages of Abelard's life, continuing to note his cyclic fortunes, waxing and waning with Stephen de Garlande until the latter finally fell from grace as Bernard de Clairvaux rose to European political pre-eminence and the former finally returned to Paris. In a change of style Burge spends several pages discussing the themes within the hymns of Abelard, a literary examination amongst the historical investigation before reverting to discussions of Abelard's fighting with Clairvaux and the famous Council of Sens where the latter's brilliant rhetoric won the minds of the 'jurors' rendering Abelard speechless. Abelard ended his days condemned for heretical discouse, eventually dying whilst under the hospitality of Abbot Peter and with his death so the story peters out quite quickly, a few pages remaining to briefly cover what little we know of the remaining third of Heloise's life, and some of the known actions of their son before even more quickly covering their escalation within the French national identity and final resting place in Paris together.
Burge's work excels in bringing the story, the period and the nature of the philosophy to the reader in a manner that is both readable, informative and deeply stimulating. It is the kind of secondary text that would inspire a reader to go out and purchase the original texts of these brilliant twelfth cenutry lovers and read even further around the entires scope of twelfth century european religion, politics and philosophy. At the same time it does not lose its emotive discussion, humanising both of these people and making their tragic love story rise fresh to a new century of people. This book is highly recommended.

James Burge's study very successfully combines the inevitable and appropriate romantic and sexual relationship involved with a readable and reliable assessment of the medieval intellectual and social background. Excellent use is made of the relevant and remarkable primary source material, although the precise significance of the more recently discovered letters could perhaps have been made more effectively.

Abelard and Heloise's relationship with St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable, the greatest monastic leaders of this period, could also have been more firmly delineated, as the Benedictine background can hardly be overestimated

It does not, and probably should not have the dramatic effect of Helen Waddell's great novel, and inevitably lacks the authority of Etienne Gilson's study, which is somewhat bizarrely omitted from the Bibliography in this edition.

Nonetheless this must be the best penny I have ever spent on a book, and will be a permanent component of that focal part of my library with Waddell, Gilson, the Penguin edition of the Letters and the CD of Abelard' suriviving sacred music.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!