Letters of Abelard and Heloise
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| == Castration episode == | == Castration episode == | ||
| - | :"[Fulbert] bribed my servants; an assassin came into my bedchamber by night, with a razor in his hand, and found me in a deep sleep. I suffered the most shameful punishment that the revenge of an enemy could invent; in short, without losing my life, I lost my [[manhood]]. So cruel an action escaped not justice, the villain suffered the same mutilation, poor comfort for so irretrievable an evil. I confess to you that shame more than any sincere penitence made me resolve to hide myself from the sight of men, yet could I not separate myself from my Heloise."[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letters_of_Ab%C3%A9lard_and_H%C3%A9lo%C3%AFse/Letter_1] in a translation/edition by [[John Hughes (poet)|John Hughes]] | + | :"Violently incensed, [Fulbert and his henchmen] laid a plot against me, and one night, while I, all unsuspecting, was asleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they broke in with the help of one of my servants, whom they had bribed. There they had vengeance on me with a most cruel and most shameful punishment, such as astounded the whole world, for they cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two of them were captured, and suffered the loss of their eyes and their genital organs." --''[[Historia calamitatum]]'' |
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| == Publication history == | == Publication history == | ||
| The original Latin text was published in Paris in [[1616]], but it was only after the publication of a French translation of the correspondence in [[1693]] that these letters began to attract wide public attention. | The original Latin text was published in Paris in [[1616]], but it was only after the publication of a French translation of the correspondence in [[1693]] that these letters began to attract wide public attention. | ||
Revision as of 22:51, 20 February 2012
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The Letters of Heloise and Abelard is a series of letters between French priest Peter Abelard and his female student Héloïse d’Argenteuil after their his castration and their separation. These letters were also the inspiration for Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard".
These letters are only known by posthumous copies which makes it impossible to ascertain their authenticity, no original copies of these letters exist. Yet even if other authors have been attributed to the letters, the name of Jean de Meung has cropped up, the letters' authenticity remain the most probable thesis.
The story of Heloise and Abelard is one of an illicit love of Heloise for, and secret marriage to, her teacher Pierre Abélard, and the brutal vengeance her family exacts when they castrate him, not realizing that the lovers had married.
Castration episode
- "Violently incensed, [Fulbert and his henchmen] laid a plot against me, and one night, while I, all unsuspecting, was asleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they broke in with the help of one of my servants, whom they had bribed. There they had vengeance on me with a most cruel and most shameful punishment, such as astounded the whole world, for they cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two of them were captured, and suffered the loss of their eyes and their genital organs." --Historia calamitatum
Publication history
The original Latin text was published in Paris in 1616, but it was only after the publication of a French translation of the correspondence in 1693 that these letters began to attract wide public attention.
John Hughes (c. 1678-1720) was not a great poet, but his translation of the Letters of Abelard and Heloise, preceded by a summary of their lives by Pierre Bayle (first published in 1713), was of enormous popularity throughout the eighteenth century.
See also
