Resources On Heloise And Abelard's Letters
five lectures in video and podcast format on love, marriage, and tragedy
The romance between Heloise d’Argenteuil and Peter Abelard developed and was carried out first under her uncle’s nose in Paris, when the two of the were supposed to be engaged in studying together. Both of them had extraordinary gifts of intellect, and Heloise arguably surpassed Abelard in boldness in several matters. After its discovery, the two continued their affair, and when Heloise became pregnant with their child (who she would name Astrolabe), she was sent to Abelard’s family in Brittany while he tried to work something out with her uncle. There’s a lot more to the story, which you can easily find, so I’ll just say that things went quite bad.
Heloise and Abelard got married in secret. Her uncle sent men to castrate Abelard. Abelard retired to a hermitage and took religious vows, and insisted that Heloise herself should do so as well, and become a nun, which she did. Eventually, he will write a letter of consolation to one of his friends, “A History Of My Calamaties”, a copy of which finds its way to Heloise’s hands, and she writes him back, initiating a correspondence that has rightly become one compelling text in the long history of love.
I have my students read, and we discuss these letters between Heloise and Abelard in my Introduction To Philosophy classes, when I center their focus on the thematics of love, friendship, sexual desire, and relationships (you can learn more about that here). In the letters, both Abelard and Heloise discuss their relationship, its past, its prospects, and what they continue to feel for each other. Heloise advances a very interesting argument that, despite taking religious vows, and lacking any way to continue their sexual relationship, they do remain husband and wife. They can legitimately, and ought to, enjoy the measure of marriage that still remains to them, expressing and experiencing their mutual love through letters. Abelard unfortunately turns her down, advancing arguments of his own.
Last year, I produced a series of videos, and then podcast episodes on that collection of letters, working through all of the topics, each of the arguments, and discussing the recurring themes articulated within them. Here are the links to the entire set.
Letter 1 - A History Of Abelard’s Calamities | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 2 - Married Love and Religious Life | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 3 - Love, Virtue, Duty, and God | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 4 - Love, Despair, and Repentance | watch video | listen to podcast
Letters 5-6 - Struggling Against Passion | watch video | listen to podcast
There you have them. Five lectures in both video and podcast format, on this collection of letters between these legendary lovers. I hope you find them useful or interesting.