Letters of Abelard and Heloise
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Scott Moncrieff
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~56,400 words · 268 passages
Cite this work
- APAPeter Abelard. (n.d.). Letters of Abelard and Heloise. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/peter-abelard/letters-of-abelard-and-heloise
- MLAPeter Abelard. "Letters of Abelard and Heloise." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/peter-abelard/letters-of-abelard-and-heloise.
- ChicagoPeter Abelard. Letters of Abelard and Heloise. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/peter-abelard/letters-of-abelard-and-heloise.
What it is about
The letters of Abelard and Heloise.
Context and history
He writes to her as a spiritual director; she answers that she repents of nothing and entered the convent out of obedience to him and not to God. Heloise's letters are what make the collection immortal, and some have doubted they are hers precisely because they are too good.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
It is very surprising that the _Letters of Abelard and Heloise_ have not sooner appeared in English, since it is generally allowed, by all who have seen them in other languages, that they are written with the greatest passion of any in this kind which are extant. And it is certain that the _Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier_, which have so long been known and admired among us, are in all respects inferior to them. Whatever those were, these are known to be genuine Pieces occasioned by an amour which had very extraordinary consequences, and made a great noise at the time when it happened, being between two of the most distinguished Persons of that age. These _Letters_, therefore, being truly written by the Persons themselves, whose names they bear, and who were both remarkable for their genius and learning, as well as by a most extravagant passion for each other, are every where full of sentiments of the heart, (which are not to be imitated in a feigned story,) and touches of Nature, much more moving than any which could flow from the Pen of a Writer of Novels, or enter into the imagination of any who had not felt the like emotions and distresses.
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