Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Maybe people who saw the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" will know the story of Eloise and Abelard, whose love affair in the late middle ages was as tragic as it was passionate.
The title of the film comes from a poem by Alexander Pope, entitled "Eloise to Abelard".

Eloise was an extremely clever young woman of 18 when she met Peter Abelard, who was 51. Abelard was a philosopher and priest and Eloise's uncle had arranged for him to be her tutor. From the moment the two met they fell madly in love. They secretly got married and managed to keep their secret very well until Eloise got pregnant and her uncle found out. Furious at this, Eloise's uncle had Abelard hunted down and castrated.

After this the two lovers were not allowed to meet again. Eloise was sent off to be a nun and Abelard, who had now lost his official position in the church, was forced to retire in a monastery. They exchanged letters for the rest of their lives, but never met again...

Their passion did not die out as a letter from Eloise to Abelard states, painfully: "Even during the celebration of the Mass, when our prayers should be purest, lewd visions of the pleasures we shared take such a hold upon my unhappy soul that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of my prayers. Everything we did, and also the times and places, are stamped on my heart along with your image, so that I live through it all again with you."
Due to the thinking of the time, Abelard came to see his fate as a well deserved punishment from God for having succumbed to sexual pleasure. How different things would have been if they were alive today!

In Alexander Pope's poem, Eloise envies the women around her who became nuns by choice and not by force:

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd; Labour and rest, that equal periods keep; "Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;" Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n, Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n. Grace shines around her with serenest beams, And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams. For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms, And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes, For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring, For her white virgins hymeneals sing, To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away, And melts in visions of eternal day."

For the full Alexander Pope poem, click below.
http://www.monadnock.net/poems/eloisa.html

Comments

Anonymous said…
Just like Colleen McCullough's Thornbirds :) priest falling in love with a woman.
it's not so surprising to hear about a very young lady falling in love with a very old man.how about a 51-year old woman falling for an 18-year old guy during that time?
Friday, 06 May, 2005
Anna said…
Yes, priest falling in love with young woman is almost a bit of a cliche isn't it! :-)
As for the age difference being the other way around in those days, I don't think so. There may well have been plenty of older women in love with young men, but as this was a very patriarchal society, I should think they would have done their best to conceal any such feelings, even from themselves. Sex in those days was shrouded with guilt and the sense that anything to do with carnal desire was unnatural, against the laws of God and on the side of Satan, etc. People were imprisoned in a cage of religious dogma, which breeds hate, fear, guilt, shame and self-loathing.
Sunday, 08 May, 2005
Anonymous said…
Great to think about and to discuss such lives...but get the facts right FIRST...he was 38 not 51...viist many websites or their tombs (where their remains may or may not be) in Paris.
Pregnant first...marriage later. Amazing stuff.
Thursday, 28 September, 2006
Anonymous said…
I am Eloise Juliette and am fascinated by the historical nature of the two names.
Saturday, 03 February, 2007
Anonymous said…
Actually, Pierre Abedlard was not a priest, he was a lecturer at what eventaully became the Sorbonne. It was customary for the teachers to be celibate, but not a sacred vow. Still, he did succumb to guilt and felt the castration was proper punishment. Read Marion Meade's Stealing Heaven, or if possible, see the film. Glorious story gloriously told.
Tuesday, 13 February, 2007
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine the Great and her Many Lovers

Image
Catherine the Great was empress of Russia from 1762 until she died in 1796. She was born in 1729 in Poland and in 1744 was taken to Russia to marry the young Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne and not of a sane mind. For seven years during their marriage Peter spent his time playing with toy soldiers and dogs and showed no interest in sex. In fact he had a physical disability, a very tight foreskin, which may have played an important part in that matter. Finally the empress Elizabeth gave Catherine the permission to take a lover, which she did and was soon pregnant. She convinced Peter it was his own child, as was the plan anyway. In the meantime he had been circumcised so that he could perform the sexual act. Catherine developed a taste for young soldiers. She had a special area built in her bedroom, which was curtained off and where she received her lovers. Gregory Orlov was her on and off lover for around thirteen years. He was said to possess excellent equipment, unbelievable ‘st
Read more

Emperor Elagabalus; the Teenage Pervert

Image
When the emperor Caracalla was murdered in 217, the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus succeeded him. He only ruled for 4 years, but in that short period of time he commited a variety of grotesque and debauched acts, enough to make Caligula and Commodus seem rather plain. His real name was Bassianus but as he developed an intense interest in worshippng the Syrian god Elagabal, became High Priest of the cult and so had his name changed to Elagabalus. To honor his god, he demanded that hundereds of cattle were slaughtered daily on huge sacrificial altars. He had a temple built on the Palatine Hill and ordered the Romans to worship a statue of a giant phallus, which didn't go down very well at all... Eventually he decided he was the god embodied. He started to wear women's clothes and make-up, implored his surgeons to cut his penis off and make him a vagina and when they said tehy could not do this he settled for circumcision. His body is said to have been very effeminate and he had a m
Read more

The Smelly Woad Dyers

Image
Woad leaves Before Indigo was imported from the East in the 16th Century, the only source of rich blue dye was Woad, Isatis Tinctoria, a plant which is a member of the cabbage family and which was brought to Britain by the Celts. They called it Glasto, hence Glastonbury, which means ‘a place where woad grows’. The process by which the dye was extracted was lengthy and very smelly indeed, (think combination of raw sewage and rotten cabbage) and the people who did this work, woad dyers, were outcasts of society, since they smelt so much. As a result they were isolated and inbred. There was no way of hiding if you were a woad dyer as even if you washed yourself really well to remove the stench, the blue dye could be seen on your fingers and under your fingernails. Queen Elizabeth I, not being able to stand the stench from their workshops, decreed that woad dyers should be at least 5 miles away from wherever she was staying. As it took 50 kilos of woad in order to produce 5 kilos of pigme
Read more