Heloise and Abelard: A New Biography of History's Great Lovers FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The love story of Abelard and Heloise was one of the most talked about relationships in the Middle Ages, and is one of the greatest love stories of all time. Peter Abelard was arguably the greatest poet, philosopher, and religious teacher in all of the twelfth-century Europe. In an age when women were rarely educated, Heloise was his most gifted young student. As master of the cathedral school at Notre Dame in Paris, Abelard was expected to be celibate; his career would be destroyed by marrying. In spite of this, Abelard and Heloise's private tutoring sessions inevitably turned to passionate romance, and their moments apart were spent writing love letters." "When Heloise became pregnant, her possessive guardian and uncle, Fulbert, angrily insisted that they marry. The ceremony was held in secret, but the rumor spread through Paris. Enemies confronted Heloise, who publicly denied the marriage in order to protect Abelard's career. Fearing for her safety, Abelard slipped Heloise out of the city and sent her to convent. Robbed of his niece and his family's honor, Fulbert took revenge by having Abelard brutally castrated. Abelard retreated to a monastery, and the famous lovers now lived separate lives behind cloistered walls - but their love, and their letters, continued." "For a long time, the only letters known to have survived dated from the later period of their separation. Then, astoundingly, a few years ago a young scholar identified 113 new letters between the pair. Lost for almost nine hundred years, these fresh missives provide an intriguing snapshot of the couple's clandestine passion that is erotic, poignant, and at times even funny." James Burge is the first biographer to combine these new discoveries with the latest scholarship, resulting in a more complete biography; one that paints a fuller picture of Heloise as a women who tested the cultural constraints of her time. Burge also addresses Abelard's theological disputes with other teachers, including
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The romance of Heloise and Abelard remains one of the greatest love stories of all time-one of forbidden love; the eventual lifelong separation of the lovers, cloistered in a monastery and convent; and the vengeful castration of Abelard by Heloise's uncle. More tantalizingly, we know of the affair only from eight surviving letters between the couple. But British Sunday Independent columnist Burge draws on 113 recently translated letters that have been attributed to the lovers. Based on all of these letters, Burge analyzes the feelings and states of mind of the correspondents, and he can be a bit pedantic at times. But who can fail to be moved by the passion expressed in the letters? "Even during the celebration of the Mass," Heloise famously wrote, "when our prayers should be purest, lewd visions of the pleasures we shared take... a hold on my unhappy soul...." Burge relates Abelard's theological struggles with the medieval Church, especially with the powerful Cistercian leader Bernard of Clairvaux. Unlike in previous biographies, Heloise emerges as a leader, too, in her role as abbess of the Paraclete, which she developed into a substantial institution. A complex woman, she sought a unified sense of self that would incorporate both her sexuality and her religious faith. Readers new to this medieval drama will be drawn to this vivid account. B&w illus., maps. Agent, Sheila Ableman. (Dec.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Drawing upon the newly discovered correspondence between Heloise and Abelard, TV producer and journalist Burge here explores one of the greatest love stories of all time. Abelard was a brilliant philosopher from Paris; Heloise, 15 years his junior, was his student and a poet. Their passionate love affair culminated in the birth of a child, but their secret marriage ended in a brutal attack in which Abelard was castrated. The couple was forced to separate but continued to write letters while living in monasteries. Both comprehensive and compelling, this account offers a revealing look at a 12th-century couple attempting to find comfort in the face of tragedy and despair. It is a tale of adoration, devotion, and adversity that continues to grip the imagination of people nine centuries later. Recommend for public and academic libraries.-Susan McClellan, Avalon P.L., Pittsburgh Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
New insight into the story of the definitive star-crossed lovers, drawing on a trove of recently discovered correspondence. Neatly reversing the order in which the lovers' names usually appear, Sunday Independent columnist Burge also pays much due to the young Heloise, hitherto considered a misguided girl once "preoccupied with erotic thoughts, who becomes eventually the sensible abbess" of history. Not quite, as an expanded epistolary relationship between the two reveals. But first Burge does a solid job of dealing with a complicated backstory, in which the handsome and near-gigantic Pierre Abelard, scion of Breton aristocracy, arrived in Paris at the age of 21 "to indulge the first great love of his life-logic." A prizefighter of the syllogism, unafraid to come to metaphorical (and even real) blows with intellectual opponents, Abelard would meet Heloise a decade later, after he had made plenty of influential enemies, including the future saint Bernard of Clairvaux, "who willingly misinterpreted his every word and tried to spread it about that he was some kind of deranged sorcerer." Abelard, Burge notes, was even a renowned author, whose Dialectica he likens to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, "hard to understand but a best-seller nonetheless because of its apparent promise to give the reader an insight into fundamental truth." Heloise's entrance onto the stage yielded tragedy in due time: after marrying and producing a child, the two separated, even as Heloise's uncle belatedly decided to punish Abelard for his premarital affair with her. That punishment took the form of a careful, near-surgical castration that Burge describes in rather too much detail for the squeamish;Heloise was hustled into a nunnery; and a famed correspondence between the two gathered heat, as Abelard tried to shift responsibility for just about every misstep onto others and Heloise lamented the fact that "while we . . . abandoned ourselves to fornication . . . we were spared God's severity" but were undone when the two dared follow the rules and marry. Burge's interpretations are sound, his uses of the correspondence effective. A classic story, of course, and well worth remembering. Agent: Sheila Ableman
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