The Letters of Abelard and Heloise by Pierre Abélard

Thus, like Augustine before and Rousseau after him, Abelard writes about his own life with a philosophical aim: to display the nature of what it is to be human and to make claims about how human life ought to be lived. The story of the relationship between Ablard and Hlose is one of the worlds most celebrated and tragic love affairs. 1079 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician. This is not done to unmask a self without place or parallel but to make the case for a new way of life in a new community for the inner self who is truly seeking God. Peter Abelard (/ æ b l r d / French: Pierre Abélard Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailardus c. While the project is never complete, the search itself becomes an identity Abelard achieves authenticity in his rejection of all the models of it that were available to him. While using traditional medieval narrative forms, I argue, Abelard gives his story a modern-sounding autobiographical twist: that its moral is about matching outer to inner self. This reading shows an emerging sense of self and self-knowledge based on the relationship between external act and internal intention. His personality is very nearly unreadable. Unfortunately, most of the book is taken up by a very long letter by Abelard to a friend detailing all the events of his life (more or less). Heloise seems to be much more intelligent, forceful and good-natured. In this essay, I offer an interpretation of Abelard's Historia Calamitatum and letters exchanged with Heloise, arguing that both are informed by the attempt to look below the surfaces of language, self, and action to a reality beneath and to achieve authenticity, by which I mean coherence between surface and depth. The letters written by Abelard however, are mostly a self-pitying cry fest.

The Letters of Abelard and Heloise by Pierre Abélard