Eloisa to Abelard - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Published in 1717, Eloisa to Abelard is a poem by Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

(1688–1744). It is an Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

ian heroic epistle

Epistle

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians...

inspired by the 12th-century story of Héloïse's illicit love for, and secret marriage to, her teacher Pierre Abélard, perhaps the most popular teacher and philosopher in Paris, and the brutal vengeance that her family exacts when they castrate

Castration

Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

him, even though the lovers had married.

After the assault, and even though they have a child, Abélard enters a monastery

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

and bids Eloisa to do the same. She is tortured by the separation and by her unwilling vow of silence — arguably, a symbolic castration — which she takes with her eyes fixed upon Abélard rather than upon the cross (line 116).

Years later, she gets done Historia Calamitatum
Historia Calamitatum
Historia Calamitatum , also known as Abaelardi ad Amicum Suum Consolatoria, is an autobiographical work in Latin by Peter Abelard, one of medieval France's most important intellectuals and a pioneer of scholastic philosophy. It is one of the first autobiographicalworks in medieval Western Europe,...

(History of my Misfortunes), which is a letter of consolation to a friend, and her passion for him is reawakened. Eloisa and Abelard exchange four letters. In an effort to make sense of their personal tragedy, they explore the nature of human and divine love

Agape

Agape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term...

. However, their incompatible male and female perspectives make painful the dialogue for both.
In Pope's poem, Eloisa feels anguish over her powerful feelings — especially in her dreams — for Abélard. She feels further anguish over the realization that Abelard, now a eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

— which is a mercy that has freed him from the "contagion

Disease

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

of carnal impurity" — cannot return her feelings even if he wants to. And so she begs, not for forgiveness, but for forgetfulness

Forgetting

Forgetting refers to apparent loss of information already encoded and stored in an individual's long term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from memory storage. It is subject to delicately balanced optimization that ensures that...

No, fly me, fly me, far as pole

North Pole

The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

from pole

South Pole

The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...

;

Rise Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

between us! and whole oceans roll!

Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me,

Nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.

Further reading