Abelard and Heloise Essay examples

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – popularly considered by many to be the quintessential love story of all time – is a play that we are all familiar with in one way or another. Whether it be through the plethora of portrayals, adaptations and performances that exist or through your own reading of the play, chances are you have been acquainted with this tale of “tragic love” at some point in your life. Through this universal familiarity an odd occurrence can be noted, one of almost canonical reverence for the themes commonly believed to be central to the plot. The most widely believed theme of Romeo and Juliet is that of the ideal love unable to exist under the harsh social and political strains of this world. Out of this idea emerge two

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even

Unlike Abelard, Heloise never wrote a unified and comprehensive piece of work. Instead we have to gather her philosophy from her few letters’ and our understanding of her from Abelard’s responses. From her writing Heloise seems conflicted in both major relationships of her life, both Abelard and with God. With Abelard she is upset that after everything she did for him, he does nothing for her “Tell me one thing, if you can. Why, after our entry into religion, which was your decision alone, have I been so neglected and forgotten by you that you neither speak to me when you are here nor write to me when you are absent?”(1) This portrays an interesting image of Heloise living a life pursuing God in the nunnery but not for Him, and not for herself but for Abelard, because he wanted her to. In doing this she puts Abelard’s interests before not only her own, but even God’s “I can expect no reward for this from God, for it is certain that I have done nothing as yet for love of him”(2). It is in this way that we can learn Heloise’s philosophy, of furthering the interests of others rather than your own. It is this motive that Heloise finds to be good, action performed for the best

Since the beginning of time people have been intrigued by the story of “two star-crossed lovers”, those who long to be together but never can. Such is the case of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the collaboration work, West Side Story. The purpose of this paper is to show the similarities and differences between these two tragic love stories.

Love always seems to find a place in someone’s heart not by choice but by admiration. One who admires another appears to feel something towards the person they are admiring and that feeling they have can lead into the feeling of love. Despite all of Love’s joy and excitement, Gottfried Von Strassburg’s Tristan and Thomas’ Tristan, reveals the way love overwhelms a person and the outcomes that happen when two lovers cannot be near or without each other. Love’s overwhelming feeling often associates with death, in that those in love are so consumed with emotion and the desire to be with their beloved that it can lead to their downfall. Even though the loves of Rivalin and Blancheflor and Tristan and Isolde/Ysolt are similar in ways, they also are different.

Their relationship started when Abelard was hired by Heloise’s uncle to be her teacher and live in his home with Heloise and himself. In the beginning of their relationship, Abelard was just Heloise’s teacher and mentor, but he had another plan for the relationship. He put his plan into action and the relationship turned extremely sexual. When Heloise’s uncle

Heloise was one of the most intelligent women of her time in her own right, and Abelard chose her so they could talk and exchange ideas. This was a progressive view for his time. When Fulbert tried to get Abelard and Heloise to marry, Abelard did not dispute the idea, though it would primarily injure his reputation as an intellectual who should be distanced from the world. Instead, it was Heloise who argued against it. Heloise said that she wanted Abelard’s reputation to stay positive, so he could continue to see success in his career. But she also describes another significant idea in her letters to Abelard for why she doesn’t want to marry. Heloise says in a response to Abelard’s autobiography, “But you kept silent about most of my arguments for preferring love to wedlock and freedom to chains.”(letters p. 52). She lays out the arguments she was referring to in the passage following this statement. Her arguments center around this idea that it is better for her to love Abelard out of her own free will every day, than to be married and lose that choice. This idea was a progressive idea. She says this would be more significant to make the choice to love him that to be forced through marriage. Abelard is at least in part responsible for this idea because it emerged through their relationship and dialogue. Other ideas were developed through their correspondence as well, though this remains the most

Abelard, completely focused on his studies, had no intention of falling in love until he met someone just as academically advance as himself. Heloise captured Abelard’s heart and they started their love affair. Abelard feels guilty for having sexual affairs with Heloise before marriage and “during the days of Our Lord’s Passion” (147). And although God blesses sex in a marriage, the church regulates when a couple can be together. The affair lasts until Heloise’s uncle, Fulbert, a Church official, finds out and puts an end to it. However, being the witty, clever man he is, Abelard convinces Heloise to dress up as a nun and practice the nun life so that their affair will remain a secret. Unfortunately, this secret plan lasts until Fulbert finds out and thinks that Abelard’s intentions are to only get rid of Heloise and with that in mind

Abelard and Heloise are a great example of a tragic love affair. One that still haunts the world to this day in many retrospect put onto a pedestal like the great tales of Romeo and Juliet or Tristian and Isolde. The idea that Abelard valued his academic life more than his ‘love’ of Heloise is a statement that is given much merit throughout his letters. However, an important fact that should not be overlooked when looking into this is that while yes, Heloise did mourn over the loss of their relationship and reminisce more than Abelard this could be because the letters also give us a look at how women are so dismissed in this period.

Regardless of the fact that Heloise (1101-1164) was Abelard’s junior by twenty-two years, they fell into love.Not unexpectedly, Heloise became pregnant, and gave birch to a son named Astrolabe.In order to avoid bringing scandal on themselves and their families, Abelard insisted they be married in secret.Feeling guilty for what they had done, Abelard was able to persuade Heloise to take the holy vows at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Argenteuil.Her uncle Fulbert quickly found out about what had happened and was completely outraged, but later somewhat placated by the marriage.That quickly ended when he found out about Abelard forcing his niece to become a nun.Believing Abelard had used the abbey as a place to abandon Heloise, and continue with his life alone, Fulbert quickly had him castrated.Finding nothing left in his life separated from his wife and his boys, Abelard retired to a retreat at the Abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France, in Paris.This is where he began to write and publish the works that changed the world and made him famous.

To begin, the “Letters of Abelard and Heloise” were originally formulated by the mind of Abelard, sometime around the year 1128 in Latin (not to published until around 1616 in Paris then re-appearing in England in 1728. From there, being multiply translated and reformatted until it was officially published in 1722.) It is a re-telling of the story of his love affair at 37 as a highly-educated and revered Professor at “Logic and Canon-Notre Dame;” having lived an intellectual and passion derived life before and with the young mistress Heloise who was quite possibly the last student of his to be “educated” to a higher level he discovers a side he has never known to himself, only felt.

Abelard and Heloise were lovers who were not supposed to be together. Heloise was the niece of Notre Dame’s Canon Fulbert. She was very intelligent and therefore needed an advanced teacher, who happened to be Abelard. The pair ends up falling in love even though Abelard is twenty years older than Heloise. Their relationship results in Heloise becoming pregnant out of wedlock so they flee to Abelard’s hometown out of Paris. Heloise’s uncle, Canon Fulbert, arranges a secret marriage for them but his ulterior motive is to ruin Abelard’s reputation for marrying a young student. Abelard is then attacked in Paris by muggers. To escape their persecution, Abelard becomes a monk and Heloise becomes a nun. They do not see each other for many years until

The second part of that statement lead Abelard down his next path of individuality, the first to cause him physical pain. To these faults he attributes his downfall, which was as swift and tragic as was everything, seemingly, in his dazzling career. He tells us in graphic language the tale of how he fell in love with Heloise, niece of Canon Fulbert. In the midst of his exploits he met Heloise, and in the first time writing about her in The Story of My Calamities he describes her individuality. "...in the extent of her learning she stood supreme.

After Heloise and Abelard were split up they began to write letters to each other. What we see of Heloise’s letter is that she is writing to Abelard about how she is his, and how she was living only to love him. This is accurate due to to their intimate relationship with each other that got them in trouble.

Nevertheless, the force of their infatuation and physical love attested to be a power beyond their resistance, and the truth emerges on them soon after Heloise becomes pregnant. This forced them to flee to Brittany upon realizing that Paris was no longer safe for them. Shortly afterward Heloise gave birth to a baby boy, a situation that angered her relatives and led to the betrayal of their love through the arrangement of a secret wedding by her nephew Fulbert. He had a hidden agenda to expose and destroy the love between the two. After his attack and castration, Abelard becomes a monk and Heloise a nun, The holy orders they had take to avoid the public humiliation. The author writes the letter to Abelard after many years without seeing or hearing from each other upon going