Heloise & Abelard by James Burge: A Review

Burge begins Heloise and Abelard with a simple yet surprisingly loaded chronology of the lives of his two main characters.  His documentary-making skills are evident as he takes this first step in establishing the foundation of historical perspective for his readers.  This chronology is deceptively effective as a foreshadowing mechanism.  It’s a list of dates with accompanying notations among which are embedded random ingots of shocking and tantalizing info.  A simple list of dates getting a reader hooked on this story?  Who’d have thunk it?  It goes without saying that, for me, the chronology was also an amazingly helpful reference.

Burge discusses the nature of those two collections of illuminating letters – the basis of the telling of Heloise and Abelard’s love story – and their respective discoveries and subsequent dissemination in the book’s introduction.  The history of these collections, and the means by which they were brought into the light of academic scrutiny, would make for a fabulously compelling book in their own right.  The first group of letters – eight in all – had comprised, until relatively recently, the sole public historical record of the relationship of Heloise and Abelard.  These letters, or a manuscript comprising their exact contents, found their way into the hands of the poet Jean de Meung, who made them public, in written form, in 1275, less than a century after the deaths of Heloise and Abelard.  Burge proposes an educated explanation of de Meung’s acquisition of the letters’ contents, and he refers to the eight letters themselves as “the source of the knowledge of the bones of the story.” 

The true nature of the second group of letters – 113 in all – was revealed in The Lost Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise by the scholar Constant Mews in 1999.  Mews is widely credited with being the first to unabashedly recognize the letters for what they truly were.  He’d initially come across them in an obscure Latin manuscript written by a monk named Johannes de Vepria.  This particular work contained what de Vepria had evidently considered to be examples of excellent letter-writing form, and was essentially a textbook intended to teach students the finer points of letter composition propriety and form.  He included, in his book, a section which was filled with material that was definitely of a less formal and much more passionate bent.  Mews, through his remarkable research and scholarship, was able to identify the contents of this particular section of de Vepria’s book as 113 separate written love letters between Heloise and Abelard.  These are the letters which author Burge identifies as the collective illumination of the intense power of Heloise and Abelard’s legendary love affair, and the means by which history has come to know the two lovers’ true respective personalities, and their individual capacities for this epic passion.  And, as he does with de Meung’s acquisition of the earlier discovered eight letters, Burge offers a reasonable and well-informed hypothesis for de Vepria’s possession of these 113.

The revealing quality of both groups of letters as it pertains to history’s knowledge of Heloise and Abelard is undeniable.  The letters speak for themselves and provide ample insight – particularly the much more recently discovered batch of 113 – into the hearts and minds of the storied lovers.  And it is James Burge’s adroit treatment of this astounding insight, I believe, that makes his Heloise & Abelard such an enjoyable, beautifully readable book.

The letters constituting the story of the relationship of Heloise and Peter Abelard do indeed speak for themselves, and this fact is not lost on James Burge.  I think of Burge’s treatment of this subject matter as something of a written version of a filmed documentary.  Through carefully placed references to a particular quotation from a given letter, and ingeniously posed questions (asked in almost rhetorical fashion in certain instances) in response to this referenced content, Burge further accentuates the passions which obviously inform that particular letter.  Engaging the reader’s mind with the fathoming of a question about Heloise or Abelard’s particular intent is a wonderfully effective device for evoking emotion and eliciting interest from a reader (and would work to similar effect with the viewer of a filmed documentary).

Burge uses his vast knowledge as an historian to lend background and enhanced readability to an already mesmerizing love story.  As a writer, he recognizes the importance of integrating explanations of the prevalent sociopolitical and ecclesiatical conditions (each of which would make an entertaining work of fiction in its own right), at this particular time in France’s history, as a means of lending intrigue and literary “tenebrism” to this exquistely intimate story.  An excellent example of Burge’s adept implementation of his knowledge of medieval history involves his recounting of the events that unfolded at the Council of Sens (1140-1141), where charges of heresy were leveled against Abelard.  Burge’s relating of the events that took place read almost like a modern courtroom drama.  His conversational knowledge of those times, and their various corresponding protocols and mores, allows for an incredibly enthralling re-telling of a humiliating and salient point in the elderly Abelard’s life.  You’ve gotta know your history if you’re going to talk about all of the ins and outs, so to speak, of this particular love story.  James Burge knows his history.

The cadence and structure of Heloise & Abelard has been intelligently orchestrated by Burge to maximize its readability.  The author carefully includes excerpts from the all-important letters, and any relevant corresponding historical data, according to a timeline that’s simple to follow and that accurately follows the measure of the decades of Heloise and Abelard’s lives.  This is such a rich story, and the time of the physical actualization of the protagonists’ passion is so brief (only about two years), that a simple chronology would not have been sufficient to capture the tale’s full depth and breadth.  By picking and choosing the points of introduction of certain of the story’s elements, James Burge endows Heloise & Abelard with a level of readability and an entertainment quotient far exceeding that of a purely academic historical recounting.  I consider this to be “a big book trapped in a little book’s body” – historical drama at its finest and easiest to read.

In terms of added goodies, the book contains twenty-five remarkable images (photographs, manuscript and drawing reproductions), an appendix containing a sizable selection of the 113 love letters, or portions thereof, of Heloise and Abelard (each entry’s original latin text is included, as well as the corresponding English translation), and finally, Burge’s inclusion in the book of a section entitled “The Story of Heloise & Abelard: Notes and Suggestions for Discussion.”  This last section (as is so often the case with the epilogue of a well-executed filmed documentary and its audience) leaves the reader with some wonderfully thought-provoking questions and ideas to chew over.  Here, the reader is challenged to consider the actual character of each of the book’s protagonists, the validity of some of the story’s original relevant letters/documents, a potential indictment of contemporary social structure, and a really interesting hypothetical anachronism.