Moot Thoughts & Musings

Yes, another post about Latin. I've given up trying to understand every nuance, every twist of grammar in every sentence of the assigned homework. It's way too stressful. I'm enjoying my class still, just not allowing it to take over my life.

These past two weeks we've been reading Abelard and Heloise. Last week Abelard's Historia calamitatum and this week Heloise's "Letter to Abelard." I've always heard of their infamous love affair, but this was the closest I've gotten to actually reading anything about it. Reading Abelard first was really eye-opening to the situation. He was a jerk. His basic account of the event was that he had heard that Heloise was one of the most educated women (more like teenager) around and he thought so highly of himself that he was going to try to seduce her. So he goes to her uncle and gets permission to live in their house, be her tutor, and punish her if he deems her negligent in her lessons. The rest is history, as they say. He does indeed seduce her, they secretly marry, she has a son, her uncle enraged has Abelard castrated, she enters a convent, and they are separated for a while, though he does help her and some nuns later. Her response in her letter? to continue to profess undying love. While reading it, it almost seems like a cruel joke that he has seduced her so thoroughly. Everyone in my class was profoundly disgusted. Not one of us saw the tragic romance of it all that seems to follow the story of Abelard and Heloise.

We were having a discussion today about how she could have continued to love him when he as much as told her that he was primarily interested in seeing if he could get her to bed and never expressed any sentiments of true affection. Later, upon considering the context of their relationship--that Abelard was nearly 20 years than she, and that he was her teacher, and that they both valued learning very highly--, I began thinking about how intensely personal the teacher-student relationship really is. It is not unheard of for professors to marry their students. There is a body of literature and movies that reinforces this picture. The teacher gives so much, enlivens parts of the mind that were previously unknown. The eager student is susceptible to these awakenings and depends on the teacher for them. The student craves the teacher's approval, and the recipe is set for the exchange to become even more personal, to gain erotic qualities.

So the picture must have gone for Abelard and Heloise. Heloise was well-educated and very sharp. Abelard's avant-garde scholasticism must have been quite appealing, and when he left the door open for her to come closer, she must have entered willingly.

Another couple in literature that probably strikes us less sharply is Edmund and Fanny in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. They are first cousins, her family poor, his rich. His father invites Fanny to join their family when she is still a child to give her some advantage. When she arrives she is very shy and cringes not knowing how to behave in her new circumstances. Kind-hearted Edmund takes her under his wing, instructs her in all that is good, moral, and discreet in a very Jane Austen-y kind of way. Her gives her books to read and literally shapes her complying mind. She very much depends on him. After growing up and a tumultuous time of ill-fated suitors, they find each other. Or rather, he finds her. She's been waiting for him. And they live happily ever after. I recently listened to Mansfield Park on tape, and even though the whole of the book finds conclusion in the happy union of Edmund and Fanny, I was a little weirded out by his marrying what was basically his creation, not to mention the fact that they were first-cousins, but that point didn't seem to bother people back then.

On the other hand, is there a couple who finds true love and meeting of the minds without the intensely personal sharing and giving of learning? When I reflect on Chris's and my marriage, I know this is true. Our first conversation had nothing to do with each other. We were talking about art, economics, and philosophy. We admired each other's ideas, and as we shared these very personal aspects of our lives, it naturally turned into a profoundly personal connection.

Perhaps there is always a sense of creation between two people in a couple. The "Pygmalion" syndrome? Where you give of yourself into the other so much that you help "create" the other, and that is when you fall in love with the other: when the other has part of you in it, and the other becomes your creation. And then you fall in love with your creation. Perhaps my class was a bit too harsh on Abelard.

On a completely different note, though Latin has been a rather stressful aspect of my life this semester, I'm coming back for more. I think I shall audit another Latin class. My really fab Latin prof from last sem is teaching an all Cicero class, and she is quite amenable to my being a spectator (I can't go through the stress and time of preparing translations for each day). I'm feeling excited because first, I love this prof; second, it's Cicero, and I just wouldn't feel properly educated without some exposure to Cicero, esp. when he had such an impact on Renaissance thinkers (and that is my area of specialization, if I can ever get past all this course work).