P8T8R ABELARD Books by Helen Waddell BEASTS AND SAINTS THE DESERT FATHERS MEDIAEVAL LATIN LYRICS PETER ABELARD THE WANDERING SCHOLARS ABELARD A NOVEL BY HELEN WADDELL DRAWINGS BY LASZLO MATULAY NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY CONTENTS BOOK I THE CLOISTER OF NOTRE DAME BOOK II BRITTANY 101 BOOK III PARIS 161 BOOK IV THE PARACLETE 221 BOOK I THE CLOISTER OF NOTRE DAME June 1116 May 1117 CHAPTER I Temps sen va, Et rien nai fait . . . A LARD raised his head. It was a pleasant voice, though a little drunken, and the words came ...
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P8T8R ABELARD Books by Helen Waddell BEASTS AND SAINTS THE DESERT FATHERS MEDIAEVAL LATIN LYRICS PETER ABELARD THE WANDERING SCHOLARS ABELARD A NOVEL BY HELEN WADDELL DRAWINGS BY LASZLO MATULAY NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY CONTENTS BOOK I THE CLOISTER OF NOTRE DAME BOOK II BRITTANY 101 BOOK III PARIS 161 BOOK IV THE PARACLETE 221 BOOK I THE CLOISTER OF NOTRE DAME June 1116 May 1117 CHAPTER I Temps sen va, Et rien nai fait . . . A LARD raised his head. It was a pleasant voice, though a little drunken, and the words came clearly enough, a trifle blurred about the con sonants, to the high window of the Maison du Poirier. The window was open, for the June night was hot, and there were few noises after ten oclock in the Place du Parvis Notre Dame. Time goes by, And naught do I. Time comes again, . . . Et ne fais rien Abelards smile broadened. I am very sure, my friend, said he, that you do not. But at any rate he had found a good tune. The listeners ear was quick. He began not ing it on the margin of his manuscript, while his brain busied itself fitting Latin words to the original a pity to waste so good a tune and so profound a sentiment on a language that was the breath of a day, Fugit hora, Absque mora, Nihil facio . . . Not to that tune. The insinuating, if doomed, vernacu lar lilted again. Abelard realized that he was spoiling the 3 PETER ABELARD margin of his Commentary on Ezekiel, and turned back resolutely. Now, as Augustine says, our concern with any man is not with what eloquence he teaches, but with what evidence. But the thread of his argument was broken he got up and came over to the window. The singing had stopped, but he could see the tonsured head below him, glimmeringlike a mushroom in the dusk, while the legs tacked uncertainly across the broad pavement of the Parvis Notre Dame on their way to the cheerful squalors of the Petit Pont. Suddenly they halted the moon had come out from a drifting haze, and the singer, pausing on the edge of a pool of light, peered at it anxiously, and then lifted up his eyes. The voice rose again, chastened, this time in the venerable cadences of the hymn for dawn Jam lucis orto sidere Statini oportct bibere. The blasphemous pup, said Abelard. He leaned out, to hear the rest of it Now risen is the star of day. Let us arise and drink straightway. That we in peace this day may spend, Drink we and drink, nor make an end. This was a better parody, because a simpler, than the one he had made upon it himself ten years ago, to illus trate for his students the difference between the acci dents and the essential, the accidents being the words, the essential the tune. Lord, the Blessed Gosvins face when he began singing it Doubtless he would be the Blessed Gosvin some day so holy a youth could not fail of a 4 THE CLOISTER OF NOTRE DAME sanctified old age. St. Gosvin perhaps the youngster was Prior already at ... he had forgotten where. The im pudent, smooth-faced prig. Abelards mind was running down a channel it knew and did not like the moment in the classroom at St. Genevieve, when Gosvins reedy treble had interrupted the resonant voice from the rostrum with those innocent questionings, answered contemptuously, the masters eyes half averted and his mind less than half attentive, till the sudden horrid silence brought him to his senses and he realized that he was trapped, even as he had so often trapped that good old goat, William of Champeaux. He had recovered, magnificently but for the moment he had felt the hounds at his throat. And the cheering had been too vehement they knew. Somebody on the lie de Cite that night made a song about David and Goliath, not a very good song, but the name had stuck to him since, though not many remembered the origin of it. A pity, all the same, that Gosvin took to the cloister. It w r ould be very pleasant to have him lecturing to empty benches at St. Genevieve, while at Notre Dame the stu dents wedged open the doors and stood thick on the stairs...
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I read Helen Waddell's 1933 novel, "Peter Abelard" after a recent visit to a local Washington, D.C. library outside my neighborhood. I learned that the book would be featured in a discussion and lecture series titled "Heroes and Demigods: The Rise and Fall" to be lead by a highly distinguished professor, Ori Z. Soltes, Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University. The coming event rekindled an old interest in Abelard which I had never pursued. The library provided me a copy of the book, and I am looking forward to Soltes' lecture later this month.
Helen Waddell (1889 -- 1965) was a scholar of medieval life. "Peter Abelard", her only novel, was a great critical and commercial success when it was published but unfortunately is out of print. The novel is a historically informed retelling of the romance between Abelard and Heloise. It also explores the philosophy and theology of Abelard and weaves together thought and romance.
Abelard (1079 -- 1142) was a famed, brilliant teacher and logician. At the age of 37, while teaching in Paris, he met and fell in love with the beautiful and intellectually-gifted 17-year old Heloise. Waddell's novel begins at this point in Abelard's life with references back to his earlier years. The two lovers have a passionate affair, and Heloise bears a son, named Astrolabe. Abelard and Heloise secretly marry, but the marriage soon comes out. Heloise reluctantly joins a convent and leaves Paris to protect Abelard's career. Heloise's uncle has Abelard brutally castrated. These events are narrated well, if elliptically, in the book.
In what is essentially the second part of the novel, Abelard is tried and convicted of heresy for one of his writings and is forced to throw it in the fire. While sentenced to imprisonment, the sentence is commuted and he retreats to life in an isolated rural area as a near-hermit. His retreat is ultimately named Paraclete for the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. While living alone Abelard has an insight into the nature of evil and into the doctrine of Atonement. Waddell's novel ends with the communication of this insight by a third party to Heloise, who is still unhappy as a nun and still deeply in love with Abelard. Heloise will go on to establish a convent at Paraclete and she and Abelard will exchange a famous series of letters.
Waddell's book is beautifully if densely written. The focus is on Abelard and Heloise, but the book offers a realistic portrayal of 12th century medieval life in Paris. It shows the life of the schools, the Church, and of the ever-present bars and taverns. Waddell quotes extensively from medieval poetry, some of which is by Abelard, that she collected and translated in her other writings. The poems offer a commentary on the events in the novel. For example, here is a little poem by the love-struck Abelard, sung during a scene in a tavern.
"So by my singing am I comforted
Even as the swan by singing makes death sweet,
For from my face is gone the wholesome red
And sorrow in my heart is sunken deep.
For sorrow still increasing,
And travail unreleasing,
And strength from me fast flying
And I for sorrow dying,
Dying, dying, dying,
Since she I love cares nothing for my sighing."
Waddell also introduces and develops well many secondary characters in the story. The many characters make the book move slowly for readers without a basic familiarity with Abelard or the Paris of his day. The writing is by turns witty, ironic, and full of romantic and philosophical insight. As Waddell's book develops, its focus is more on Abelard and his intellectual insights than on the love story. Abelard is a philosophical rationalist who objects to the traditionalism and appeals to authority of the theologians of his day. He becomes a hero by his growth in understanding more than by his early egoism and his treatment of Heloise. Abelard's theological insights transform the character of his relationship to Heloise.
Waddell's book moved me to read Henry Adams' chapter on Abelard in his "Mount Saint Michael and Chartres" which discusses Abelard's life and philosophy at some length. I am looking forward to participating in a discussion of this fascinating book with other interested readers at the library in the lecture-discussion series led by Professor Soltes. Although Waddell's book has fallen into some obscurity, it is deeply worth reading for readers interested in the Abelard-Heloise romance, in varied understandings of religion and sexuality, or in the philosophy of religion.
