Dark Letters

I started my latest NU class last Saturday. It is an examination of Courtly Love (not the singer from Hole) in the Middle Ages. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into since my exposure to Medieval Literature is fairly limited.

The instructor started talking about classical philosophers and theologists and I think he was even speaking latin at times. I checked out the course description and while there is "no language requirement" for the students, it warned that the instructor may "speak in tongues".

The first thing we are reading is the collected letters of Abelard and Heloise. Abelard starts the whole thing off talking about how he was the most awesome student, so great that he regularly out-shone all his fellow students and often publicly disagreed with his masters. He seems surprised that this caused rancor aimed at him. He then goes on to infiltrate the home of a gentleman in order to get to know the gentleman's niece, Heloise. They fall in love, she has a baby, and they run off together.

Heloise's uncle is a little ticked. He makes the couple marry, but Abelard drops her off at a convent and goes back to teaching. This puts the uncle over the edge. Abelard suffers the consequences by being castrated in the middle of the night by the uncle and others. This is all pretty awful, but Abelard isn't even close to being finished. After reading about his exiles, charges of heresy, his awesomeness as a teacher, another exile, monks who try to poison and stab him, I really started to lose sympathy. By the end, I just wanted him to shut up.

Somehow (I imagine as a result of their forced separation) Eloise manages to stay very much in love with this wet blanket. She is one of the most highly educated in intelligent women of the millennium, but we all make poor choices. Her letters are amazing. I kind of can't believe that she was as candid and provocative as she was. She tells Abelard that she would rather be his concubine than the greatest king's queen. When she quits professing her undying love, she actually gets down to the business of re-defining the rules that govern Benedictine nuns. She quotes the bible, Ovid, and countless philosophers. She basically kicks ass.

Anyway, we shall see how this course goes, but so far, so good.