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Letters of Abelard & Heloise
by Abelard and Radice
Radice’s text is for me one of the best translation we may consult when trying to follow and understand Abelard’s and Heloise’s tragic history. I would say it is the best one in English, not because I do not respect the others, but because it is easy to read in a fluent language, which facilitates the lecture of the account of a miserable personal drama. No wonder that it is also the most looked up crib on this subject for the whole world. For everybody who wishes to get to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding such a wounded love, it is a must.
The story of their misfortunes is not simple. More you are reading, more you question yourself. Radice’s transcription from the twelfth Latin, by its clarity, helps a lot to disentangle the many allusions incorporated in the text. Exposing their proper suffering, the heroes actually are exposing themselves to the condemnation of the Church. They have to concede what was not possible to confess. Now that we have to understand what is hidden in Abelard’s words – Aberlard, master of dialectics, – and what her highly talented schoolgirl – not more than fourteen years old – had to utter for proclaiming her innocence, we need to consult a highly precise translation. Radice’s one. But also what, at the same time, Heloise had to express for convincing us that she provoked the damage. But, for being untimely pregnant, she definitively considered herself as having involuntarily and unconsciously injured love to death. She was harmful and pernicious. However she could not be considered guilty. She expresses her infliction in an inconsolable longing.
Reading Radice’s version will strongly help receptive persons to understand what kind of injury precipitated the death of human love – an unity of physical and spiritual love – between two learnt persons so madly in love. Of course Heloise got the necessary instructions and prescriptions from her master, twelve years later – when redacting her letters – about what could be given word in a most ambiguous way when telling the truth without telling it. But she were able to compete with the master due to her unusual and impressive intelligence. Radice delivers the message we have to elaborate ourselves if we are really wanting to follow the fantastic master and all the calamities he suffered for erasing hers.
So I read it again and again. I consider Radice’s book as one of the best reference. I consult it whenever it is necessary to clear up any difficulty. Even when she seems not quite right it is worthwhile to reconsider her interpretation. We realize we are in front of something very special and splendidly rendered in English.
Roland Oberson is the author of several books in French about Heloise and Abelard. He is intending to understand what has really occurred between the special master of arts, Abelard – a genius -- and his singular slave, Heloise. He could not without often making reference to Radice’s translation.
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Letters of Abelard & Heloise by Abelard
rolandoberson, October 5, 2009
Letters of Abelard & Heloiseby Abelard and Radice
Radice’s text is for me one of the best translation we may consult when trying to follow and understand Abelard’s and Heloise’s tragic history. I would say it is the best one in English, not because I do not respect the others, but because it is easy to read in a fluent language, which facilitates the lecture of the account of a miserable personal drama. No wonder that it is also the most looked up crib on this subject for the whole world. For everybody who wishes to get to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding such a wounded love, it is a must.
The story of their misfortunes is not simple. More you are reading, more you question yourself. Radice’s transcription from the twelfth Latin, by its clarity, helps a lot to disentangle the many allusions incorporated in the text. Exposing their proper suffering, the heroes actually are exposing themselves to the condemnation of the Church. They have to concede what was not possible to confess. Now that we have to understand what is hidden in Abelard’s words – Aberlard, master of dialectics, – and what her highly talented schoolgirl – not more than fourteen years old – had to utter for proclaiming her innocence, we need to consult a highly precise translation. Radice’s one. But also what, at the same time, Heloise had to express for convincing us that she provoked the damage. But, for being untimely pregnant, she definitively considered herself as having involuntarily and unconsciously injured love to death. She was harmful and pernicious. However she could not be considered guilty. She expresses her infliction in an inconsolable longing.
Reading Radice’s version will strongly help receptive persons to understand what kind of injury precipitated the death of human love – an unity of physical and spiritual love – between two learnt persons so madly in love. Of course Heloise got the necessary instructions and prescriptions from her master, twelve years later – when redacting her letters – about what could be given word in a most ambiguous way when telling the truth without telling it. But she were able to compete with the master due to her unusual and impressive intelligence. Radice delivers the message we have to elaborate ourselves if we are really wanting to follow the fantastic master and all the calamities he suffered for erasing hers.
So I read it again and again. I consider Radice’s book as one of the best reference. I consult it whenever it is necessary to clear up any difficulty. Even when she seems not quite right it is worthwhile to reconsider her interpretation. We realize we are in front of something very special and splendidly rendered in English.
Roland Oberson is the author of several books in French about Heloise and Abelard. He is intending to understand what has really occurred between the special master of arts, Abelard – a genius -- and his singular slave, Heloise. He could not without often making reference to Radice’s translation.
(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)