the love letters of abelard and lily summary

For Heloise, the cloister she lives in is a prison, a coffin where is she forced to stay. In her last letter to Abelard, Heloise admits that the only reason she agreed to go and spend the rest of her life in a cloister was because Abelard asked her to.

For Heloise and Abelard, death and the idea of afterlife is synonym with the chance of being together, both knowing really well that the possibility of meeting again in person is very slim. In another letter Heloise chooses to talk about death and for her, death symbolizes pace and happiness is that means that she will be able to be with the person she loves. In one of his letters, Abelard asks Heloise to make sure that he will be buried beside her, should he die sooner than she. Sexual desire was something that was frowned upon even when two people were married and it was considered as being something impure and thus something that should be avoided. Considering the time when the letters were written and the religious background, it is no wonder that sexual desire was associated with sin and a symbol for moral degradation. When Heloise talks about her desire for Abelard, she admits that it is a sin. Heloise didn’t let herself be influenced by the ideas in her time and chose instead to follow her own path. This view is different from the way marriage was seen during Heloise and Abelard’s time, when marriage was sacred and the biggest sin was living with someone else without being married.

Heloise tells Abelard that she sees marriage as a symbol for confinement, a prison that will trap both her and Abelard who will no longer be able to progress in his studies and his career. Marriageįor Heloise, marriage is not something that she desires. Love produces a drastic change in Abelard who becomes a completely different man: he abandons his studies and his desire to acquire more knowledge is replaced by his desire to please Heloise and to be with her. Love gives Abelard the power to endure hardships and humiliations just to be with the person he loves the most and Abelard lets himself be guided by his feelings. The idea that nothing is more powerful than love becomes a motif from the first letter sent by Abelard. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The love letters of abelard and lily summary