The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Aziloth Books)

ISBN 10: 1908388757 / ISBN 13: 9781908388759

Published by Aziloth Books, 2012

About this Item

Print on Demand pp. 110 23:B&W 6 x 9 in or 229 x 152 mm Perfect Bound on White w/Gloss Lam.

Seller Inventory # 130149028

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Aziloth Books)
• Publisher: Aziloth Books
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908388757
• ISBN 13: 9781908388759
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Almost one thousand years ago two people fell in love. Peter Abelard was the tutor of nineteen year old Heloise, and nearly twenty years her senior. It was a torrid affair, Heloise fell pregnant, and her guardian, Abbot Fulbert, plotted a hideous revenge. Abelard was seized and castrated. The lovers responded to this catastrophe by retreating into separate religious orders and seeking peace in the service of God. Years later a letter from Abelard to a friend falls by chance into Heloise's possession. She writes to him and there follows a series of letters that, even today, has the power to shock, excite and move the reader to tears. The poignant yearning to see one another once more is in every line of their correspondence. Heloise's timeless declarations of love could have been written only yesterday; her reckless, ruthless honesty, her apotheosis of love over morality - 'If the emperor Augustus saw fit to honor me with marriage ... it would be dearer to me to be called not his empress, but your whore' - cannot fail but impress with its hopeless, defiant fidelity. Absolutely captivating.

About the Author

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century".