This (I hope) should be an intellectually challenging question for a
sexuality - lit crit type to take up. It's somewhat open-ended, and
I'm asking it to help shake up some of my own thoughts on the subject
which I'm trying to put together for an article, and, er. -- a
relationship of mine.
The general theme: What are the issues surrounding the relationship of
Abelard and Heloise? In particular, how do the cross-currents of
sexual desire, friendship, and intellectual companionship resolve
themselves in the letters?
Particular questions for you to answer:
I'd be particularly interested to hear of articles in the critical
literature, and of books that have been published on this subject.
What is the "canonical" biography of the pair (i.e., the bio that
every critical work after feels the need to cite and disagree with)?
The canonical critical work? (There may not be just one, ignore if you
find this last question too vague to answer well.)
I would like to know the historiography of the critical literature on
the A&H relationship, particularly though not exclusively as how it is
revealed in the letters and publications of either (from the Middle
Ages on!) How have people talked about them? What, for example, was
the feminist reaction to A&H in early 1900s? In the 1960s?
Has someone clever like Virginia Woolf (or a writer of similar
stature) written an essay on the pair? How about contemporary critics
with larger academic fish to fry, such as (off the top of my head)
Susan Sontag, Adam Phillips, or Phillip Greenblatt?
I've noticed that there is a movie and a musical about the pair. This
seems relatively uninteresting to me, if only because there is a
conventional interpretation of the two in simply romantic terms, which
I'm sure both of these go in for. I'm looking for original, striking
interpretations -- hopefully literary or critical-philosophical, but
I'm not above looking at interpretations buried in the creative arts,
especially if there's a tradition of representing A&H-type characters
-- that stir the pot a little.
In my mind's eye, I've always pictured Heloise as a bright young
A-level student, and Abelard as the youngish maths teacher (no,
neither's me.) I'd like you to shake that story up for me, and open
my eyes to what I imagine to be a vigorous debate that I just haven't
been able to get a handle on with library catalogues and google.
For example, there are (I'm sure) some really interesting essays on
the web about the two that are more than simply exegesis. Or perhaps
there have been psychologists or education theorists who have written
on them? Off the top of my head again, Stoppard's _Arcadia_ seems to
sneak a little from the A&H playbook.
Finally, I have come to respect many of the researchers here, and
would be fascinated to hear your own personal reactions to the pair.
For a good, detailed and thought-provoking answer, I will tip
generously and in good faith. (See my previous question, 175307.) I
hope the current paucity of my means is offset by what I consider to
be an interesting psycho-intellectual challenge. |
