Another Forbidden Love: Abelard and Heloise and the Parallels to Gabriel’s Inferno and Rapture Part 2

Hello Everyone,

We are pleased to share another special guest post with you today.

Terry, whom you probably know as @Terry the Nurse on Twitter, is indeed a nurse, though she also has a degree in History and a graduate degree in Human Communication.

Last week, Terry shared her thoughts on Abelard and Heloise and their place in the story of Gabriel and Julia.  The response to her piece was enthusiastic and we're thrilled she is able to share more of her thoughts about the subject.

Enjoy and Take Care,
Jenn

Another Forbidden Love: Abelard and Heloise and the Parallels to Gabriel’s Inferno and Rapture

Part 2

In the study of historical literature, the letters of Heloise and Abelard are considered emotional and tragic epistolary exchanges between two doomed lovers who are forced to live chastely and apart for the majority of their lives, even after marrying and having a child together.  In my previous post, I provided some of the historical background. In this post, I will describe what I view as the parallels between SR’s characters in Inferno, Rapture (and, now Redemption), and my two favorite medieval lovers, as well as discuss the letters  for which they are so famous; the final letter of which is partially quoted in Rapture.

As we know, in several scenes of both books, Gabriel alludes that he already sees himself as Abelard, references that make Julia want to grind her teeth since they both construe Abelard’s actions differently.  Their different interpretations can be partially explained by the letters being originally written in Latin and having undergone numerous translations.  And, in contemplating meaning or significance, we interpret language from our inner selves, from our own experiences, and from our own perspectives. To me, it’s natural that Gabriel would be sympathetic to Abelard, and that Julia would be more appreciative of Heloise’s feelings of frustration and anger.

You may be surprised to discover that there are only eight published letters, lengthy as they may be. The exchange of letters began after both had been living in cloister for some time, and only occurred because Letter I (from Abelard to his friend Philintus) made its way to Heloise. These are not letters that are regularly exchanged – years passed between each letter.  They are not merely snapshots in time, but a true description of two unhappy people forced apart by circumstance. As readers, we can feel and sense their confusion, their sorrow, their irritation, their passion.

Heloise never wanted to be in the convent, nor was she “called” in any way. She remained there because she had no choice. Her love for Abelard remained passionate and undying:

“Yes, it was your command only, and not a false piety brings no peace or sincere vocation, which sent me into these cloisters; I sought to give you ease and not to sanctify myself. How unhappy am I! I tear myself from all that pleases me; I bury myself alive…” (Heloise, Letter IV.)

But Abelard’s responses seem to vacillate with push/pull messages which serve to anger Heloise – and, like Julia, she is nobody’s fool. In Letter III, he declares his passion for her:

My love burns fiercer amidst the happy indifference of those who surround me, and my heart is alike pierced with your sorrows and my own. Oh, what a loss have I sustained when I consider your constancy! What pleasures have I missed enjoying…

But later says to her:

If since our conversion from the world to God I have not yet written you any word of comfort or advice, it must not be attributed to indifference on my part but to your own good sense... I did not think you would need these things..."

Heloise, in anger, writes:

"But tell me whence proceeds your neglect of me since my being professed? You know nothing moved me to it but your disgrace, nor did I give my consent, but yours. Let me hear what is the occasion of your coldness, or give me leave to tell you now my opinion. Was it not the sole thought of pleasure which engaged you to me? And has not my tenderness, by leaving you nothing to wish for, extinguished your desires? Wretched Heloise! You could please when you wished to avoid it." (Letter II)

As you can see in these brief snippets, even though the letters were exchanged 800 years ago, their emotions and reactions are as fresh and contemporary as if they were written a decade ago. They are full of angst, devotion, anger, frustration, passion, and faith. You can read six of the letters in their entirety here. It is really the best way to appreciate the relationship and all that happened in it.

After all I’ve told you about Heloise and Abelard, I hope that you can now appreciate that there are some stunning similarities between these two couples; specifically between Abelard and Gabriel, but also between Julia and Heloise. Is it possible that SR wanted us to appreciate the parallels between the two brilliant but thwarted intellectuals to better understand Gabriel’s deep emotional conflicts? (Speaking for myself, I think that he did.)

 Both are academicians; one who lived in the Middle Ages, and one who is a specialist in Dante, considered one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages. With both men, the medieval period is prominent. And what was the name of the book Gabriel hid his message to Julia??
“Marriage in the Middle Ages: Love, Sex and the Sacred.”

 Both lost a child; one through miscarriage, and the other by adoption, disgrace, and escape to religious life.

 Both are unable to impregnate a woman after their lovers’ conceived the first and only time; one through castration, and the other through vasectomy.

 Both find a sense of peace in religion; Gabriel by his extended visit with the Franciscans in Assisi, and Abelard who became an abbot at the Saint Gildas de Rhuys monastery. Neither remained there permanently.

 Both return to teaching after a period of religious influences, and neither returns to their university of origin.

 For both Gabriel and Abelard, they find their “bashert” in their most gifted student, and in both cases, there is a considerable age difference.

 Both (for a time) question their relationship with God due to shame and self-loathing.  Abelard writes that he is aware that, according to the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), “eunuchs” (as castrated men were called) were not permitted in the Temple, which scripturally suggests how eunuchs were shunned.  Gabriel says, “I’m closer to a devil than an angel, and I’m beyond redemption because I’ve done unforgivable things.”

 Both are in love with one woman while another professes her love for him. We already know the story of Paulina and Gabriel.  A maid named Agaton in Fulbert’s household was in love with Abelard while he was in a sexual relationship with Heloise.  She told him:

“I am in love with you, Abelard; I know you adore Heloise, and I do not blame you, I desire only to enjoy the second place in your affections. I have a tender heart as well as my mistress; you may without difficulty make returns to my passion. Do not perplex yourself with scruples; a prudent man should love several at the same time, then if one should fail he is not left unprovided “(Letter 1, Abelard to Philintus)

And like Paulina, Agaton’s response to unrequited love was ruthless and vengeful (read the first letter to find out what she did.)

 Both are charismatic and irresistible to women, and display narcissistic behavior in their relationships with them. It’s fair to say that both are self-absorbed, unfamiliar with sexual rejection, and pretentious control freaks. Abelard’s need for control is evident in the Letters and his distasteful habit of frequently lecturing Heloise; Gabriel’s in his inability to allow Julia to make her own decisions. (Is it possible we will see more of this behavior in Gabriel’s Redemption??)

There are similarities between Julia and Heloise as well:

 Both live with a single male family member who dislikes their choices; Julia lives with her father who dislikes Gabriel, Heloise with her uncle who (eventually) detests Abelard.

 Both fall deeply, passionately, and irrevocably in love with their professors; both are well aware that a relationship would be considered forbidden.  Both witness their lovers’ professional humiliation following a scandal directly due to the relationship, and both are forced into circumstances that cause them pain, separation, and heartache.

 Both feel abandoned, and both feel that Abelard and Gabriel’s positions as Professor were more important than they were --in both cases, they were wrong. Heloise paid a much higher price than Julia, however. Abelard eventually returned to teaching and became a hero of The Enlightenment, whereas Heloise remained in the convent for the rest of her life.

 Both are constantly worried and insecure about how attractive their lovers’ are to other women.

o Julia to Gabriel: “I have to share you with your past – with Paulina, with Professor Singer, with Jamie Roberts – with countless other women I’m probably going to pass on the street in Toronto.”

o Heloise to Abelard: “When you appeared in public, who — I ask — did not hurry to catch a glimpse of you, or crane her neck and strain her eyes to follow your departure? Every wife, every young girl desired you in absence and was on fire in your presence; queens and great ladies envied me my joys and my bed.”

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Since first reading Gabriel’s Inferno upon its release in 2011, I have suggested to other readers and friends  that to fully appreciate the incredible beauty and complexity of SR’s writing, it’s worth it to become familiar with the hidden nuances and multi-layered references buried like gems throughout the books.  The literary, operatic, and artistic references are not only essential to the lovely story, but also provide an opportunity for us to learn more about the humanities -- which enrich our own lives in so many ways.   I hope these two posts have served that purpose for you in relation to Heloise and Abelard, and that you will want to read more about them.

If I have stimulated further interest, there are many academic resources on the Internet that you can refer to (NOT Wiki! :) ) Here are several:

To see Fordham University go here

To see Stanford University go here  here

Article: “Society as Portrayed by The Letters of Abelard and Heloise” go here 

To read Abelard’s “Confessions” from Fordham, go here

To read a great article in the NY Times Book Review about what might be newly found letters:  read Love Hurts

Another Forbidden Love: Abelard and Heloise - Guest Post by Terry

Hello Everyone,

We are pleased to share a special guest post with you today.

Terry, whom you probably know as @Terry the Nurse on Twitter, is indeed a nurse, though she also has a degree in History and a graduate degree in Human Communication.

You may have read her Charity Tuesday spotlight on Covenant House, and we were thrilled when she offered to submit another blog post for the Empire.

She's a big fan of SR's writing, and in today's post, she shares her thoughts on comparing Gabriel and Julia with Abelard and Heloise.

Enjoy and Take Care,
Jenn

Another Forbidden Love: Abelard and Heloise and the Parallels to Gabriel’s Inferno and Rapture

If you’ve read Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture (is there anyone left who hasn’t?) you already know that the medieval lovers Peter Abelard and Heloise d’Argenteuil are referenced by both Julia (in anger) and Gabriel (in love). In fact, I could argue that the comedy of errors that forces Gabriel and Julia apart, and indeed breaks their hearts --and ours-- can be partly because Julia and Gabriel have very different opinions of these two famous professor-student lovers and whose own fictional experience is not terribly different from this tragic medieval couple.

Who were Abelard and Heloise? Why are they referenced so often in the books? What are the parallels between Gabriel and Julia, and Abelard and Heloise? And what is it about those famous letters to which Gabriel refers?

Let me begin by telling you a little about this illustrative couple and why I think SR makes them relatively prominent in both of the first two books. Likewise, there are countless similarities between Gabriel and Peter Abelard. Indeed so many that I would theorize that much of The Professor is modeled on Peter Abelard. Maybe there’s a deeper reason why Gabriel says to Julia in Rapture “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph 4.” In many ways, Gabriel and Abelard mirror each other.

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Abelard and Heloise are considered the iconic couple of forbidden love. Peter Abelard (1079 – 1142), the better known of the couple, was considered one of the greatest intellects of the 12th century. Brilliant, attractive, and arrogant (especially when writing about himself), he drew thousands to his school in the province of Notre Dame in Paris. (Paris was the intellectual center of Europe in the 12th century.) He could place his roots within the French nobility, but according to some historical sources, Abelard gave up the knighthood that was due him in order to be the philosopher and teacher, a role for which he was much better suited. In addition to his knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophy and logic, he was also a renowned theologian.

While we don’t know exactly what Abelard looks like in terms of physical appearance, we do know that he held himself in high esteem. For example, he says of himself with some hubris:

So distinguished was my name, and I possessed such advantages of youth and comeliness, that no matter what woman I might favour with my love, I dreaded rejection of none. (from Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum [The Story of My Misfortune]) Clearly, he was not suffering from a lack of self-confidence, particularly with women. I know another Professor who could have said the same thing about himself.

Heloise d’Argenteuil (1090 – 1164) was a brilliant young woman of a lower social standing than Abelard and was twenty years younger than him when he became her professor. Very little is known about her family, except that she was in the care of an uncle, Fulbert, who was a Church canon of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Keeping in mind that women of this historical era were not commonly well-educated, Heloise stands out as a learned woman fluent in both literature and ancient languages. In fact, her intellectual acumen is so unusual that by the time she met Abelard she was already known across Europe for her scholarship. Writings about Heloise describe her as beautiful as well as accomplished – for Abelard (and for another professor, it seems) this is a magnetic combination that becomes difficult to resist in a woman.

Fulbert engaged Abelard to further educate Heloise privately, and Abelard went so far as to take residence in Fulbert’s home in order to be closer to her. That’s where the fireworks begin. He promptly falls deeply in love with her, and she with him even in view of a significant age difference. And their love is like fire -- impassioned, fervent, and all-consuming. And…forbidden.

As Abelard describes his passion for Heloise:

Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words. Our hands sought less the book than each other's bosoms -- love drew our eyes together far more than the lesson drew them to the pages of our text….. No degree in love's progress was left untried by our passion, and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet unknown, we discovered it. And our inexperience of such delights made us all the more ardent in our pursuit of them, so that our thirst for one another was still unquenched. [Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes)]

With a passion as evocative as Abelard describes in his confessions, it should be no surprise that their love affair rapidly becomes sexual and Heloise finds herself pregnant. In a devoutly Catholic France, Heloise’s illegitimate pregnancy begins the progression of Abelard’s disgrace and Heloise’s exile following the birth of their son; eventually forcing her to spend the rest of her life in a monastery, isolated from Abelard and her son Astrolabius forever. But it gets much worse for Abelard.

Secretly married following the birth of Astrolabius, the couple left their son with Abelard's sister. When Heloise went to stay with the nuns at Argenteuil at Abelard’s insistence and ostensibly for her protection, her uncle mistakenly believed that Abelard had rejected and abandoned her by forcing her to become a nun. In a planned attack designed by Fulbert, Abelard is beaten and castrated by Fulbert’s minions in what can only be described as an act of ultimate revenge and rage. This is how Abelard describes the attack:

Violently incensed, they laid a plot against me, and one night while I all unsuspecting was asleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they broke in with the help of one of my servants whom they had bribed. There they had vengeance on me with a most cruel and most shameful punishment, such as astounded the whole world; for they cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow. [Historia Calamitatum]

Abelard, like Gabriel, is filled with self-loathing and shame, and for very similar reasons. Both feel God has punished them for their “sins” and that redemption is not possible for them. Neither Gabriel nor Abelard can have children again – one by choice and the other by castration.

Abelard writes about his suffering in a parallel to Gabriel when he describes his anguish to Julia:

What path lay open to me thereafter? How could I ever again hold up my head among men, when every finger should be pointed at me in scorn, every tongue speak my blistering shame, and when I should be a monstrous spectacle to all eyes?…First was I punished for my sensuality, and then for my pride. For my sensuality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; for my pride, engendered in me by my knowledge of letters and it is even as the Apostle said: "Knowledge puffeth itself up" (I Cor. viii. 1)

Following the attack and castration, Abelard retreated to a monastery and lived as monk. Heloise, already in the convent and also now forced to live an asexual life, remained there and eventually became a Prioress. Unlike Gabriel (who reunited with Julia following his retreat to Assisi), the lovers were never to see each other again. However, their love for each other never waned, and is fully expressed in their exchange of letters. In my next post, I will further discuss the famous letters and discuss more similarities between the two couples – one fictional, and one authentic.

Julia: “Congratulations, Professor Abelard. No one has ever made me feel as cheap as you did…”

Gabriel: “But Abelard truly cared for Heloise and I care for you. So in that sense, there is a similarity. He also hurt her as I have hurt you. But he was deeply sorry for having injured her…”

(To be continued in Part Two)

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