Listening to Heloise The Voice of a Twelfth Century Woman

Heloise, the twelfth-century French abbess and reformer, emerges from this book as one of historys 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 Heloises 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.

...the contributors to this volume have taken the discussion of the famous correspondence to a new level...

- Mediaevistik

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.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 365-390) and index.

Bonnie Wheeler is Director of the Medieval Studies Program at Southern Methodist University.

Heloise the Abbess--Mary Martin McLauhglin * Authenticity Revisited--John Marenbon * Philosophical Themes in the Epistolae duorum amantium --Constant J. Mews * The Young Heloise and Latin Rhetoric--John O. Ward and Neville Chiavaroli * Textual Strategies in the Abelard/Heloise Correspondence--Katharina Wilson and Glenda McLeod * Heloise, Dialectic, and the Heroides--Phyllis R. Brown and John C. Peiffer II * Classical Myth and Gender in the Letters of "Abelard" and "Heloise"--Jane Chance * Heloise's Critique of Monastic Life--Linda Georgianna * Female Bodies and Christian Bodies in Heloises Third Letter--Peggy McCracken * Rhetorical Engagement and the Benedictine Rite of Initiation in Heloises Third Letter--Donna Alfano Bussell * Negotiating Gender and the Religious Life at the Paraclete--Morgan Powell * Heloise and the Question of Consolation--Alcuin Blamires * Heloise and the Question of Friendship--Brian McGuire * The Rhetorical Struggle over the Meaning of Motherhood in the Writings of Heloise and Abelard--Juanita Feros Ruys * Pierre Bayles Reflections on a Much Talked About Woman--Deborah Fraoilli