Listening to Heloise : the voice of a twelfth-century woman / edited by Bonnie Wheeler.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wheeler, Bonnie, 1944-

Series:

New Middle Ages

The new Middle Ages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Héloïse, approximately 1095-1163 or 1164.

Héloïse.

Physical Description:

xxii, 394 pages ; 25 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Summary:

Heloise, the twelfth-century French abbess and reformer, emerges from this book as one of history's most extraordinary women, a thinker-writer of profound insight and skill. Her learned mind attracted the most radical philosopher of her time, Peter Abelard. He became her teacher, lover, husband, and finally monastic ally. That relationship has made her fame until now. But Heloise is far more important in her own right. Seventeen experts of international standing collaborate here to reveal and analyze how Heloise's daring achievements shaped normative issues of theology, rhetoric, rational argument, gender, and emotional authenticity. At last we are able to see her for herself, in her moment of history and human awareness.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Heloise the Abbess: The Expansion of the Paraclete / Mary Martin McLaughlin 1

Chapter 2 Authenticity Revisited / John Marenbon 19

Chapter 3 Philosophical Themes in the Epistolae duorum amantium: The First Letters of Heloise and Abelard / Constant J. Mews 35

Chapter 4 The Young Heloise and Latin Rhetoric: Some Preliminary Comments on the "Lost" Love Letters and Their Significance / John O. Ward, Neville Chiavaroli 53

Chapter 5 Textual Strategies in the Abelard/Heloise Correspondence / Katharina Wilson, Glenda McLeod 121

Chapter 6 Heloise, Dialectic, and the Heroides / Phyllis R. Brown, John C. Peiffer II 143

Chapter 7 Classical Myth and Gender in the Letters of "Abelard" and "Heloise": Gloss, Glossed, Glossator / Jane Chance 161

Chapter 8 "In Any Corner of Heaven": Heloise's Critique of Monastic Life / Linda Georgianna 187

Chapter 9 The Curse of Eve: Female Bodies and Christian Bodies in Heloise's Third Letter / Peggy McCracken 217

Chapter 10 Heloise Redressed: Rhetorical Engagement and the Benedictine Rite of Initiation in Heloise's Third Letter / Donna Alfano Bussell 233

Chapter 11 Listening to Heloise at the Paraclete: Of Scholarly Diversion and a Woman's "Conversion" / Morgan Powell 255

Chapter 12 No Outlet for Incontinence: Heloise and the Question of Consolation / Alcuin Blamires 287

Chapter 13 Heloise and the Consolation of Friendship / Brian Patrick McGuire 303

Chapter 14 Quae maternae immemor naturae: The Rhetorical Struggle over the Meaning of Motherhood in the Writings of Heloise and Abelard / Juanita Feros Ruys 323

Chapter 15 Pierre Bayle's Reflections on a Much Discussed Woman: The Heloise Article in the Dictionnaire historique et critique / Deborah Fraioli 341.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [365]-390) and index.

ISBN:

0312213549

OCLC:

41924717