A C Grayling

Missives from the Monastry

Heloise and Abelard: A Twelfth-Century Love Story

By

Profile Books 301pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

ONE OF THE most famous couples in the annals of passion, Abelard and Heloise are invariably referred to in that order: as ‘Abelard and Heloise’. James Burge chooses to entitle his book ‘Heloise and Abelard’, and by this rearrangement succeeds in making a large and appropriate statement: for it is Heloise who is first in this story, being the one with the truly eloquent heart, to her very core the image and paradigm of a woman whose love is so profound that it rejects and defies the whole world and the wrath of God – everything, indeed, other than the beloved himself.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • Start your week with a dose of Russian Revolutionary zeal. Donald Rayfield reviews Tobie Mathew's 'Greetings From t… ,
    • A treat from the LR Archive: exactly 20 years ago, Malcolm Bradbury reviewed John Updike's 'Bech at Bay' ,
    • ‘When bullets come close, the noise they make as they go past changes from a zing to a crack’ John Lanchester's dy… ,
    • Man with a Bloody Paintbrush: Robin Simon on Lucian Freud ,
    • Jane Ridley reviews The Diaries of Kenneth Rose (ed. D R Thorpe) ,
    • ‘Look,’ says Trump. ‘The fact is I’m only human.’ On the evidence of this book that point is debatable. From the A… ,
    • From our December/January issue - here's John Banville's review of Colm Tóibín on the fathers of Wilde, Yeats and J… ,
    Follow Us