Updated 08-13-08
Heloise (d.1163/4)
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"I SEEK NO CROWN OF VICTORY--- ENOUGH THAT I KEEP FROM RISK."
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Nothing is known of Heloise's parentage except that in her
letters she implies that she is of a lower rank than Pierre Abelard,
who was from the minor nobility. She was a ward of an uncle,
a canon in Paris, and was educated at the abbey of Argenteuil,
near Paris. Between the abbey and her uncle, she achieved an
unusually thorough education. Abelard had heard of her before
he met her; he wrote: "A gift for letters is so rare in
women that it added greatly to her charm and had won her renown
throughout the realm" (Radice, p.66). When Heloise was in
her late teens or early twenties, her uncle asked Abelard, one
of the most popular teachers in Paris, to help Heloise improve
her knowledge of philosophy. Abelard would later tell his story
of the seduction of Heloise and its aftermath --- their marriage,
the birth of a son, Abelard's castration --- near the beginning
of his Historica calamitatum.
By 1119, Heloise had, at Abelard's direction, become a nun
at Argenteuil, and Abelard had become a monk, though a rather
peripatetic one. Four years later Heloise was made prioress,
and so in charge of the education of the nuns, the novices, and
the children who were being taught there as she had been. In
1129, the nuns of the Argenteuil were evicted because of a dispute
about the ownership of the land, and the nuns were scattered
to various monasteries. Abelard went to see Heloise (for the
first time in ten years) and offered to her and some of her fellow
nuns possession of the Paraclete, an oratory that he had founded
some years before in the Champagne area. The women moved there
and received a charter in 1131 naming the Paraclete as a Benedictine
abbey; Heloise became the abbess.
In 1132, Abelard wrote a letter to a friend, his Historica
calamitatum; it circulated among his friends and Heloise
read it. It was this that initiated their correspondence. There
are extant four letters by Heloise to Abelard: the first two
are often called the "personal letters," the third
is on religious life, and the fourth accompanies a list
of 42 questions about scriptural passages posed by Heloise and
her fellow nuns. It is assumed that the the first three letters
were written by 1135 and the fourth perhaps in 1136, when Abelard
was back in Paris teaching. Although one of Abelard's letters
outlines a Rule for the nuns of the Paraclete, the actual Rule
used by the community (Institutiones nostrae) is believed
by some scholars to have been written by Heloise in about 1147.
In 1141, some of Abelard's teachings were condemned; he was
on his way to Rome to argue his case when he became ill. He died
the following year. At his death his body was brought to the
Paraclete for burial. We have one more of Heloise's letters,
to the abbot who had been Abelard's superior at his death: she
asks for a written statement of her husband's absolution "to
be displayed above his tomb" (Levitan, p.273) and for a
position in the Church for their son.
Heloise served as abbess at the Paraclete for twenty more
years, until her death. Under her rule, five dependent priories
were established, and the monastery earned a reputation as one
of the most important in France. To her contemporaries, Heloise
was well known as the Paraclete's competent and learned abbess.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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Online
1. In English:
(a) Abelard's
Historia calamitatum, translated by Henry Adams
Bellows. It is this document to which Heloise's first letter
is a response.
(b) The first
four letters of the correspondence, two by Heloise and two
by Abelard, translated by Stephan T. Mayo. There is a useful
introduction by Mayo, but the notes are limited to biblical references.
(c) Three other versions of Heloise's first letter: One is by
C.K.
Scott Moncrief, with a general introduction and bibliography
(through 1997) by Paul Halsall and a link to a discussion of
the authenticity of Heloise's letters. The second is by A.S.
Richardson; the third by Betty
Radice (here, at the top, an illumination from a 1300s manuscript
of Jean de Meung's Le roman de la rose, the work that
initiated the legend of Heloise and Abelard).
(d) Sometime after writing her third letter, Heloise put together
a group of 42 biblical questions that she and her fellow nuns
wished to have answered by Abelard; here is Joan Ferrante's translation
of Heloise's
fourth letter, which introduced the questions.
2. In Latin:
(a) Abelard's Historia
Calamitatum.
(b) Links to Heloise's
first two letters.
(c) Heloise's
third letter, which describes the need of a women's monastery
for a rule of life different from those instituted for men (for
a translation of part of this, see below, under "In print").
3. Essays:
(a) "Heloise
& Abelard: Love Hurts," by Cristina Nehring, is
a 2005 review of several recent books; it provides a useful introduction
to the lovers' story.
(b) "Handmaids
of God: The Role of Women in the Medieval Church as Displayed
in the Letters of Abelard and Heloise and Abelard's Historia
Calamitatum (2006), by Allison M. Johnson, describes
what the letters reveal about the period's view of women.
(c) Brenda M. Cook's 2000 essay, "The
Birth of Heloise: New Light on an Old Mystery?" on what
is known and what can be conjectured about her background.
(d) A 1996 essay by Bruce L. Venarde, "Praesidentes
Negotiis: Abbesses as Managers in Twelfth-Century France."
Although the entire essay is useful, you can use your browser's
search function to go to "Heloise"; she is discussed
in some detail.
(e) In Ch. 15 of his 1869 Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's
Progress, Mark
Twain's version of the story of Heloise and Abelard. Not
intended to be historically reliable, the essay is amusing for
Twain's view of Heloise's uncle and the men who castrated Abelard.
At another site, the Parisian
tomb that inspired Twain's thoughts (the two bodies were
moved there in 1817, after considerable traveling over the centuries).
4. Reviews (for information on the books' treatment of Heloise,
see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Barbara Newman on Neville Chiavaroli's and Constant Mews'
1999 translation of Epistolae duorum amantium, Lost
Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue
in Twelfth-century France. (And at another site, a transcript
of a 2000 Australian radio program's interview
with Mews, which includes passages of the "lost letters.")
(b) A later review by Newman, this of Mews' 2005 study Abelard
and Heloise, which includes Newman's description of the
reaction to Lost Love Letters; elsewhere,
another review, this by Antonia Ryan.
(c) Ann Higgins on Marilynn Desmond's 2006 study,
Ovid's Art and the Wife of Bath: The Ethics of Erotic Violence.
(d) Rebecca Krug on the 2005 essay collection, Voices
in Dialogue: Reading Women in the Middle Ages.
(e) Priya Jain on James Burge's 2003 book, Heloise
and Abelard: A Twelfth-century Love Story; and another
review, this by Ann Wroe.
(f) Diane Watt on the 2003 anthology, Guidance
for Women in Twelfth-century Convents.
(g) Cynthia Ho on Barbara Newman's 1995 study, From
Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and
Literature.
(h) Mews on the 1993 essay collection, Dear
Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre.
4. Of historical interest: Definitely not an accurate
version of the letters, but one that would be much used for two
centuries: The
Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise, a 1901 edition of
a 1714 version by John Hughes. The introduction, by Honnor Morten,
describes it politely as "rather a paraphrase than a translation";
William Levitan sees it as "the source of much misinformation"
(p.302); and Radice describes it as a "travesty" and
one of the "wilder flights of fancy" surrounding the
story of the lovers (2003, pp. 52, 50).
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[William Levitan's is the most complete translation of
the correspondence, including not only Heloise's three complete
letters to Abelard and one to Peter the Venerable, but also the
introduction that opened her last extant letter to Abelard (although
not the Problemata, the 42 questions that form the heart
of that work). Levitan's introduction includes a discussion of
the letters' Latin prose style. The book also includes eight
of Abelard's poems and hymns (translated by Stanley Lombardo
and by Barbara Thorburn); an excerpt from John Hughes' 1714 fanciful
version of the legend (see online); and Levitan's translation
of excerpts from Epistolae duorum amantium, attributed
by some to Abelard and Heloise. A chronology and bibliography
are useful aids. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
The letters and other writings / Abelard and Heloise; translated,
with introduction and notes, by William Levitan; selected songs
and poems translated by Stanley Lombardo and by Barbara Thorburn.
Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., c2007. (xli, 356 p.: ill., map, music)
LC#: B765.A21 L48 2007; ISBN: 9780872208766,
9780872208759
Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-333) and indexes.
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"She... is prepared to prostitute herself."
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[If you read Heloise's first two letters online, note these
passages. In the first letter is the sentence that has made her
notorious from the time that Jean de Meun quoted it in the Roman
de la Rose (c.1280) to the present (the phrase works better
in Latin, where "meretrix" is rhymed with "imperatrix").
The sentences that immediately follow it have generally been
ignored:]
So I call my God to witness now:
If great Augustus, ruler of the world,
ever thought to honor me by making me his wife
and granted me dominion over the earth,
it would be dearer to me
and more honorable to be called
not his royal consort but your whore.
No man's real worth is measured by his property or power:
fortune belongs to one category of things
and virtue to another.
And no woman should think herself any the less for sale
if she prefers a rich man to a poor one
in marriage and wants what she would get
in a husband more than the husband himself.
Reward such greed with cash and not devotion,
for she is after property alone
and is prepared to prostitute herself
to an even richer man given the chance. [p.56]
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"But is there any hope for me if you are gone?
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[Abelard answered Heloise's first letter, writing as if
their old passionate love had now been sublimated into a love
of God, so that there was no reason for them to see each other
or even to write. Heloise's second letter quickly disabused Abelard
of that notion:]
But is there any hope for me if you are gone?
Or any reason to linger on this pilgrimage of life
when I have no other answer but you,
and nothing else in you but the fact that you are living,
when every other joy from you has been forbidden,
and even your presence is denied me,
which could restore me to myself from time to time? [p.74]
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"Do not presume so much."
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You too were taken in by my charade
like all the rest,
mistaking my hypocrisy for religion.
And now you commend yourself to my prayers---
to my prayers above all---
and ask from me what I expect from you.
Do not presume so much, I beg of you:
you may forget to help me with your prayers.
Do not ever suppose that I am healed:
you may withdraw the grace of your healing.
Do not believe that I am not in need:
you may put off your help when I most need it.
Do not imaging that I am strong:
I may collapse before you stop my fall. [pp.81-82]
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"Do not talk to me of strength."
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Do not talk to me of strength or of fighting the good fight.
Do not tell me that power is made perfect by weakness,
and that no one is crowned who does not strive.
I seek no crown of victory---
enough that I keep from risk,
far safer to keep from risk
that to keep struggling in these wars.
Whatever corner of heaven God may grant
will fit me well enough:
no one will envy another's state
when what each has will always be enough. [pp.83-84]
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"If only the heart... were as ready to obey as the hand."
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[Abelard's reply to Heloise's second letter told her to
stop complaining: "I had thought that your bitterness of
heart... had vanished long ago.... If, as you claim, you strive
to please me in all things,...you will put this bitterness aside.
You cannot please me with it or attain the state of blessedness
at my side" (p. 93). Heloise obeyed her husband. She wrote
a third letter in which after the opening, she spoke only as
an abbess who needed specific information and detailed guidance
in order to establish in her monastery a practical and logical
observance of the monastic life the nuns had agreed to follow.
Her third letter opens:]
Since there must never be the slightest cause
for you to find fault with my obedience,
a bridle has been set upon my words,
although my grief itself is still untamed.
Your order now is that I moderate myself
and refrain at least from writing
what is not difficult but impossible
to guard against in speech.
Nothing is less in our power that the heart,
which is more apt to command us than to obey....
I therefore will restrain my hand from writing
what I cannot keep my tongue from saying aloud.
If only the heart that grieves
were as ready to obey as the hand that writes. [pp.105-106]
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"All of us... now approach you as our father."
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[And now Heloise the abbess of the Paraclete, takes over
the letter, to speak with her nuns to the abbey's founder:]
So then---
All of us, the handmaidens of Christ and your daughters in
Christ, now approach you as our father with two requests. We
see them both as necessary to us. One is that you teach us how
the order of nuns began and tell us of the origin and foundation
of our calling. The other is that you institute a rule for us
to follow, a written directive suitable for women. This has not
been done by any of the Fathers.... [pp.106-107]
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"...the load we see causing nearly every man to stagger
and collapse."
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[The nuns of the Paraclete were living under the Rule of
the Benedictine order, written 600 years before and written for
men. Heloise described the effects of an inappropriate Rule on
the women whom she must lead; then she speaks of both male and
female monastics:]
If those who rush blindly into their monastic vows --- and
there are many of them in these times --- were to watch more
carefully what they were doing, consider beforehand the calling
they professed, and actually study the import of the Rule, they
would offend less through their ignorance and sin less through
their neglect. But as it is, nearly everyone alike comes running
into monastic life with little thought at all, and once received
in disorder, they proceed to live in disorder, and, as easily
as they profess a rule they do not know, will ignore the same
rule, substituting customs they prefer for existing law. We must
be careful, then, to avoid burdening women with the load we see
causing nearly every man to stagger and collapse. [p.114]
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"We cannot love what we do not understand."
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[Under their learned abbess, the nuns at the Paraclete
studied Scripture seriously; they wanted to understand, not merely
accept. They asked questions that demanded answers of a kind
not found in their library. Sometime after writing her third
letter, Heloise put together a group of 42 of these questions
"as they occurred to us each day," all from or related
to passages in the Bible. Here is part of the letter that accompanied
the questions:]
You have always counseled us to turn our minds
to the word of God and the reading of his scriptures,
calling it the mirror of the soul,
in which we can see true ugliness or beauty,
and which no bride of Christ should be without
if she seeks to please the one
to whom she has given her life.
You have also told us that reading without understanding
is like hold up a mirror before the blind.
My sisters and I have taken this to heart
and have acted in obedience to your words
as fully as we could,
until we have completely fallen in love
with the learning about which Jerome said,
"Love knowledge of the scriptures
and you will hate sins of the flesh."
But now we are disturbed by many questions,
which has made us slower in our reading.
We cannot love what we do not understand,
and as we labor in this field, it does not seem
that we can make much progress on our own.
So we send our humble questions on to you----
your students to their teacher,
your daughters to their father---.... [pp.258-59]
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[Betty Radice's translation includes Abelard's Historica
calamitatum, his three letters to Heloise (the fourth is summarized),
and Heloise's first three letters (as well as a brief letter
to Peter the Venerable); it does not include Heloise's introductory
letter to the Problemata. The 2003 edition revised by
M.T. Clanchy provides updated notes and bibliography, a useful
essay on studies done since the 1974 first edition, and excerpts
from Mews' Lost Love Letters. Only a few minor word changes
have been made in the texts of Heloise's letters, so for those
the earlier edition would suffice:]
The letters of Abelard and Heloise / translated with an introduction
and notes by Betty Radice. Rev. ed. / revised by M.T. Clanchy
(Penguin classics). London; New York : Penguin, 2003. (lxxxvii,
296 p.: maps )
LC#: PA8201 .A4 2003; ISBN: 0140448993
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[C. K. Scott Moncrieff's 1925 translation was, until Radice's,
the only accurate one available in English. It includes Heloise's
first three letters. Scott Moncrieff provides no notes and his
brief introductions are of his time: he describes Heloise's first
letter as "full of great affection and querulous complaints,
in the feminine way":]
The letters of Abelard and Heloise, translated from the Latin
by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (Blue jade library). New York, A. A.
Knopf, 1933. (xxiii, 264 p.)
LC#: PA8201 .A4 1933
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[Elizabeth Mary McNamer's study gives in an appendix a
complete translation of the Problemata, the set of 42
questions on scriptural passages that Heloise and her nuns sent
to Abelard in her last extant letter; the questions are not given
in the above translations. The rest of the book is a general
review of education in the 1100s:]
McNamer, Elizabeth Mary. The education of Heloise: methods,
content, and purpose of learning in the twelfth century (Mediaeval
studies, v. 8). Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, c1991. (188
p.)
LC#: LA2375.F7 H45 1992; ISBN: 0773496572
Includes bibliographical references (p. [184]-188).
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Secondary sources
[Three essays in this collection deal with writings once
attributed to Abelard or to "Anonymous" which some
scholars now assign to Heloise: (1) Constant J. Mews' "Heloise,
the Paraclete Liturgy and Mary Magdalen" discusses and provides
a translation of Institutiones, the Rule designed for
the nuns of the Paraclete. (2) David Wulstan's "Heloise
at Argenteuil and the Paraclete" analyzes two liturgical
plays and some hymns used at the Paraclete, showing musical notation
as well as text. (3) Juanita Feros Ruys' "Hearing Mediaeval
Voices: Heloise and Carmina Burana" discusses Heloise's
authorship of a 39-line secular love poem. In all of the essays,
translations of quoted verse are given in the text or at the
end of the book. All of the essay writers appear to accept Mews'
attribution of Epistolae duorum amantium to Heloise and
Abelard (see below):]
The poetic and musical legacy of Heloise and Abelard: an anthology
of essays by various authors / edited by Marc Stewart and David
Wulstan (Musicological studies; v. 78). Ottawa, Canada: Institute
of Mediaeval Music; Westhumble, Surrey: Plainsong and Mediaeval
Music Society, c2003. (xv, 164 p.: geneal. table, map, music;
29 cm)
LC#: BV468 .P64 2003; ISBN: 1896926517
Includes bibliographical references
----------------------
[Neville Chiavaroli and Mews have translated Epistolae
duorum amantium, over 100 excerpts of letters from the 1100s
between a young woman and her teacher/lover. In a lengthy commentary,
Mews argues that the writers were Heloise and Abelard. Whether
or not you find the argument convincing, you will find useful
background on Heloise and Abelard and on the period. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
The lost love letters of Heloise and Abelard: perceptions
of dialogue in twelfth-century France / Constant J. Mews; with
a translation by Neville Chiavaroli and Constant J. Mews (The
new Middle Ages). New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. (xvii,
378 p.)
LC#: PA8201.A9 M49 1999; ISBN: 0312216041
Includes bibliographical references (p. [363]-368) and index.
English commentaries and Latin texts with English translations
----------------------
[For a recent report on the question of The Lost Love
Letters, see two essays in this collection. In "Epistolae
duorum amantium and the Ascription to Heloise and Abelard,"
C. Stephen Jaeger analyzes the letters and finds "a strong
argument in favor of the ascription" (p.149). Jaeger's essay
is followed by Giles Constable's "The Authorship of the
Epistolae duorum amantium: A Reconsideration," which
questions some of Jaeger's conclusions but finds the letters
valuable whether or not written by Heloise and Abelard. This
essay is followed in turn by a brief "Reply" from Jaeger.
(See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Voices in dialogue: reading women in the Middle Ages / Linda
Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, editors. Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, c2005. (xvii, 508 p.: ill.)
LC#: HQ1143 .V67 2005; ISBN: 0268037175
Includes bibliographical references and indexes
----------------------
[This collection contains several valuable essays, two
of which are perhaps most useful for the general reader: (1)"Textual
Strategies in the Abelard/Heloise Correspondence," by Katherine
Wilson and Glenda McLeod, analyzes the rhetoric of Heloise's
first two letters. (2)"'In Any Corner of Heaven': Heloise's
Critique of Monastic Life," by Linda Georgianna, discusses
Heloise's third letter in its historical context. The book includes
a chronology and a comprehensive bibliography that will lead
you to earlier studies. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Listening to Heloise: the voice of a twelfth-century woman/
edited by Bonnie Wheeler (The new Middle Ages). New York: St.
Martin's Press, 2000. (xxii, 394 p.)
LC#: BX4705.H463 L57 2000; ISBN: 0312213549
Includes bibliographical references (365-390) and index
-----------------------
[One chapter of Marilynn Desmond's study of the influence
of Ovid's Ars amatoria is "Dominus/Ancilla: Epistolary
Rhetoric and Erotic Violence in the Letters of Abelard and Heloise,"
which sees Heloise's letters from the Paraclete not only clearly
stating her erotic desires but also continuing the "master/servant"
relationship of her earlier involvement with Abelard (although
now her master has a debt that is owed to her). (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Desmond, Marilynn. Ovid's art and the Wife of Bath: the ethics
of erotic violence. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006.
(xiii, 206 p.: ill.)
LC#: PN681.5 .D47 2006; ISBN: 0801443792, 0801473179
Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-199) and index.
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["Heloise and the Abbey of the Paraclete," Chrysogonus
Waddell's essay in this collection, focuses on Heloise's influence
on the liturgy used at the Paraclete and, of most interest, on
the Rule, Institutiones nostrae, which Waddell believes
was written by her. Waddell summarizes the as-yet-untranslated
work and gives his translation of some passages. (See
the work's table of contents online.):]
The making of Christian communities in late antiquity and the
Middle ages / [edited by] Mark Williams. London: Anthem Press,
2005. (xi, 193 p.)
LC#: BR163 .M35 2005; ISBN: 1898855773
Includes bibliographical references (p. [153]-193)
----------------------
[Elizabeth Freeman's article discusses the way in which
Heloise uses the quasi-public forum of her letters to present
her philosophic views and to create her autobiography. (See
the issue's table of contents online, with a link the article
abstract.):]
Freeman, Elizabeth. The public and private functions of Heloise's
letters. Journal of Medieval History, 23:1 (1997), 15-28.
LC#: D111 .J67; ISSN: 0304-4181
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[In her chapter "Authority, Authenticity, and the
Repression of Heloise," Barbara Newman defends Heloise's
authorship and discusses the first two letters. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Newman, Barbara. From virile woman to womanChrist: studies
in medieval religion and literature (Middle Ages series). Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, c1995. (355 p. : ill.)
LC#: BV639.W7 N48 1995; ISBN: 0812232739, 0812215451
Includes bibliographical references (p.[321]-343) and index.
[Newman's chapter on Heloise was originally published, with the
same title, in Journal of Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, 22:2 (Spring 1992), 121-157.]
---------------------
[This collection contains Glenda McLeod's essay, "Wholly
guilty, Wholly Innocent: Self-definition in Heloise's Letters
to Abelard," which discusses the first three letters. (See the
book's table of contents online.):]
Dear Sister: medieval women and the epistolary genre / edited
by Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Middle Ages series).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c1993. (viii,
215 p.)
LC#: PN6131 .D4 1993; ISBN: 0812231708, 0812214374
Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-206) and index.
---------------------
[In his chapter on Heloise, Peter Dronke thoroughly discusses
all of the letters and, to a lesser extent, the Problemata.
He also has an "Excursus" defending Heloise's authorship
of her third letter. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Dronke, Peter. Women writers of the Middle Ages: a critical
study of texts from Perpetua (d. 203) to Marguerite Porete (d.
1310). Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1984. (xi, 338 p.)
LC#: PN671 .D7 1984; ISBN: 0521255805, 0521275733
Includes indexes. Bibliography: p. 320-332
---------------------
[Fiona Griffiths' article discusses the views of Abelard
and Heloise on the obligation of clerics to meet the spiritual
needs of nuns. Although the focus of the article is on Abelard,
Griffiths does treat Heloise's "negotiations": both
her demand for the "rule" that Abelard wrote for the
Paraclete and her later decision to use some but not all of it.
(See
the issue's table of contents online.):]
Griffiths, Fiona J. "Men's duty to provide for women's
needs": Abelard, Heloise, and their negotiation of the cura
monialium. Fifteenth Century Studies, 30 (2004), 1-24. LC#:
CB367 .F53; ISSN: 0164-0933
---------------------
[Like Griffiths' article above, Mews 2005 study deals mostly
with Abelard's writing, but one chapter describes Epistolae
duorum amantium, and another briefly discusses works that
Heloise may have written both at Argenteuil and at the Paraclete.
(See
the book's table of contents online, with links to chapter abstracts.):]
Mews, C. J. Abelard and Heloise (Great medieval thinkers).New
York: Oxford University Press, 2005. (xviii, 308 p.)
LC#: B765.A24 M49 2005 ; ISBN: 0195156889, 0195156897
Includes bibliographical references (p. 251-298) and index
----------------------
[Cecelia Feilla's article deals not with the letters themselves
but with the changing view of the correspondents over the centuries,
from monastic leaders to unhappy lovers, in what Feilla calls
a "novelization" of their story. (See
the issue's table of contents online.):]
Feilla, Cecilia. Translating Communities: The institutional
epilogue to the letters of Abelard and Heloise. The Yale Journal
of Criticism, 16:2 (2003), 363-79.
LC#: PN2 .Y34; ISSN: 0893-5378
---------------------
[James Burge's book "is not a scholarly work of academic
history, but neither is it fiction" (p.7); it is, however,
a useful introduction to Abelard and Heloise's story for the
general reader (although it focuses more on Abelard than Heloise).
Burge accepts the early letters found by Constant J. Mews (see
above) and tells the story incorporating those letters:]
Burge, James. Heloise & Abelard: a twelfth-century love
story. London: Profile, 2003. (301 p., [8] leaves of plates:
ill., maps)
LC#: BX4705.H463 B87 2003; ISBN:1861974175
Includes bibliographical references and index
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Updated 08-13-08
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