Brit.

Lit Alexander Pope 4/23/2021

1) Peter Abelard and Eloise are real people. This is a fictionalized version of a real letter by two
real people.
2) Abelard establishes a school in Paris called Paraclete.
3) Eloise is brilliant and her Uncle gives Abelard a proposition to give him free board if he
tutors Eloise.
4) Things go on and Abelard and Eloise start to have an affair, a secret affair. And was secret
until Eloise has a baby. Eloise’s Uncle (Fulbert) says that they should get married, and Eloise
does not want to.
5) Her main reason was that Abelard would have to be with her by obligation and she did not
want that and wanted Abelard want to be there because he wants to, but her Uncle is insistent
that they get married.
6) They secretly ad sneakily keep fucking around and then have a proposition that they secretly
get married. Fulbert goes around telling people that they are married, and Eloise and Abelard
deny the claim to protect Abelard’s job.
7) Fulbert then at night sends his servants to Peter Abelard’s house and pin him down and
castrate him.
8) Abelard is forced up to Northern Paris from the scandal, and Eloise is put into another
nunnery, the Paraclete.
9) Abelard writes a book about everything that happens and becomes published. When Eloise
reads it, she disputes none of it except for one thing. He says he was motivated by lust, not
love and Eloise sends a personal letter saying “You liar. You loved me.” And they go back
and forth and in the early letters Eloise brings up that she would abandon everything to be
with him and he says if se keeps it up he would stop writing.
10) After Eloise dies, her stuff is gone through and all of the letters between the two are revealed
to everyone.
11) Eloise only wanted to make Abelard happy and would rather be his concubine or whore
instead of his friend or be married.
12) The nuns ended up getting Abelard’s body and burying it next to Eloise after reading the
letters.
13) Abelard and Eloise are some of the most famous power couples.
14) In Pope, she says she should feel guilty for her sins, but when she thinks about it, she thinks
about him more.
15) Eloise wants to forget, but she is not able to. For her to repent, she must forget Abelard.
16) In neo-classicism, memory is a big thing. You must remember the past. It’s a big thing. So
it’s weird that Eloise must forget about Abelard to repent.
17) Later, Eloise wants Abelard to teach her again, to teach her to renounce him and fill her with
God.
18) Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Jim Carrey!!Watch!!
19) Maybe we don’t want to experience things the same ways people of the past have. Not
experience the intensity of their love. Its bad.