Overview

Abelard was one of the greatest thinkers of the 12th century, a man of towering brilliance and arrogance, but his poetic works written late in life for his wife Heloise and son Astrolabe reveal a different and more humble man. In the ""Planctus"" (six laments in the voices of Old Testament figures) and ""Carmen ad Astralabium"" (a poem of paternal advice) we see a man newly coming to terms with the life around him, expressing a simple but heartfelt piety, raging against social injustices and the exploitation of the poor, and re-evaluating the importance of rhetoric and education. Most significantly, we find a man struggling to comprehend, through poems written to the wife and child he abandoned, the divine mysteries of love, relationships and family.

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9780312240028

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Juanita Feros Ruys introduces us to a more humane Abelard, as he evolved in the 1130s only after re-connecting with Heloise, the woman who had transformed his life two decades earlier. Through her edition, translation, and commentary of two, unjustly neglected poetic texts, his Carmen or Song for Astralabe and his Planctus or Laments, Ruys shows with elegance and finesse how Abelard could move beyond the moralism that characterises his earlier writing to Heloise to reflect on complex issues of family relationships, justice, and the human condition. - Constant J. Mews, Professor and Director, Centre for Religious Studies, Monash University, Australia

Author Information

JUANITA FEROS RUYS is a postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney. She recently completed a PhD dissertation on twentieth-century readings of Heloise and has published papers on the rhetorical strategies of in the writings of Heloise. - JOHN O. WARD is Professor in the Department of History, University of Sydney.

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