Abstract
Héloise, a twelfth century scholar and abbess, wrote a series of personal letters to her estranged husband, Abelard, exploring the crisis of her identity which had come about because of their relationship. Héloise’s obedience to Abelard required a new public identity of her—a pious and chaste nun, and later, abbess—personas which necessitated the suppression of significant aspects of her original self, as well as the true needs of her body and soul. In these letters, Héloise gives voice to her suppressed desires, while expressing acute moral discomfort at living what she perceives to be a false and hypocritical life for the sake of love.
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Notes
- 1.
Historical sources differ as to the exact length of time between their separation and written correspondence, but the general consensus is 10–15 years.
- 2.
The Letters of Abelard and Héloise (1974), p. 113. Hereafter, all quotes from the letters are from this translation unless otherwise stated.
- 3.
Who influenced who in this case is unclear; certainly, they were of a mutual understanding at the time of these letters. In The Lost Love Letters of Héloise and Abelard (1999), Constant Mews argues that Héloise made significant contributions to Abelard’s later writing on ethics, although her input is unacknowledged.
- 4.
J.T. Muckle, qtd. in Findley (2005), p. 283.
- 5.
For example, Abelard greets Héloise in his first letter as his “dearly beloved sister in Christ,” (p. 199) in contrast to the closing words of her first letter, “farewell, my only love.” (p. 118)
References
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French, L. (2014). On the Bridling of the Body and Soul of Héloise, The ‘Chaste Whore’. In: Kambaskovic, D. (eds) Conjunctions of Mind, Soul and Body from Plato to the Enlightenment. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9072-7_11
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