http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/53505289

The lost love letters of Heloise and Abelard : perceptions of dialogue in twelfth-century France

Constant Mews examines a collection of Latin love letters preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Clairvaux, edited by Ewald Konsgen in 1974 under the title The Letters of Two Lovers. He argues that it records 113 love letters exchanged by Heloise and Abelard at the time of their love affair. Mews provides an indepth analysis of the debate concerning the authenticity of the letters and looks at the way in which the relationship between Heloise and Abelard has been perceived over the centuries. He explores the political, literary, and religious contexts in which the two figures conducted their affair, and offers new insights into Heloise as an astonishingly gifted writer whose literary gifts were only revealed in the course of her relationship with her teacher. The complete Latin text of the love letters as edited by Konsgen is reproduced in the volume, along with an annotated translation by Neville Chiavaroli and Constant J. Mews.

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