Eloisa to Abelard

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1717

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Passion Versus Spirituality

Pope explores the thematic argument between life’s spiritual aspects and its material, sensual aspects. Eloisa’s conflict between passionate love and spirituality is the driving force of the poem’s lyrical movements, and Pope advances the theme by showing Eloisa’s inability to reconcile her love for Abelard with her desire to love God. He portrays the tortured process Eloisa endures as she struggles with the mixed emotions in her heart stemming from this conflict. Pope uses literary devices such as juxtaposition and paradox to better reflect how conflicting impulses cannot be harmonized for Eloisa.

“Eloisa to Abelard” addresses passion versus spirituality in a pivotal scene about death and the concept of mortality, when Eloisa exclaims, “O Death, all-eloquent! you only prove / What dust we dote on” (Lines 335-36). The alliteration of death, dust, and dote emphasizes Eloisa’s painful realization that one day her beloved Abelard will die. The word “dote” juxtaposes love and passion with the notion of dust, emphasizing Eloisa’s recognition that both she and Abelard will become nothing but dust, but perhaps through an everlasting afterlife they will be able to share their love eternally. Though Eloisa hopes that love can outlast the process of bodily decay, when she contemplates the notion of death, she does not find relief in the concept of an afterlife but instead feels a greater desire to live her life fully and passionately. Spiritual belief offers the hope of an afterlife, but Eloisa cannot understand why her love for Abelard, which has brought her so much happiness, must be the cause for so much guilt. Pope juxtaposes positive emotions with negative ones when Eloisa describes her relationship with Abelard, as she states it was the “cause of all my guilt, and all my joy” (Line 338). These conflicting emotions show that Eloisa cannot reconcile her guilt for having sinned with the seemingly paradoxical joy that her illicit relationship with Abelard brought her.

Salvation Versus Sin

Salvation versus sin is a central conflict that Eloisa struggles with as she wavers between her obligations as a nun in a convent and her still-lingering desire for Abelard. Pope explores this thematic concern by underscoring Eloisa’s past concept of sin and her present desire to be saved by religion. The tension between these views reflects Eloisa’s concept of love and religious laws about sin. Eloisa cannot let go of the “sin” that brought her so much happiness in her illicit relationship with Abelard.

Describing their courtship, Pope writes that Abelard taught Eloisa “‘twas no sin to love” (Line 68). Pope uses images of angels, saints, and heaven to show that Eloisa firmly believes that her relationship with Abelard was not a crime against the church. However, Pope shows the depths of Eloisa’s love for Abelard when she states that she does not “envy” the saints, as their bliss appears “dim and remote” (Lines 71-72) compared with the “paths of pleasing sense” (Line 69) of her love for Abelard. Eloisa cannot understand why there must be a tension between happiness and salvation, and why what has brought her so much joy has also been the cause for such punishment. Eloisa is also against conventional marriage, favoring a romantic life of free love as opposed to marriage through the church, even if this is “sinful.” Later, however, Pope shows that Eloisa is not entirely certain, as she suddenly calls, “Assist me, Heav’n!” (Line 179) to overcome her love for Abelard, which has brought her so much pain. Eloisa’s desire to attain spiritual salvation and her sin of loving Abelard and birthing a child out of wedlock leave her with no easy solution.

Memory and Grief

Eloisa asks Abelard twice, “Canst thou forget,” (Lines 107, 109), thus highlighting the theme of memory. Through her memories, Eloisa holds on to the painful loss of his love. Pope connects Eloisa’s memories of Abelard with imagery of innocence, bliss, and lighthearted emotions as she thinks on when she first met him and compared him to an “angelic kind” (Line 61). Now, she is trapped, “lost in a convent’s solitary gloom” (Line 38), following being sent to the convent and losing contact with Abelard. Contemplating these cherished memories provides a momentary respite for Eloisa, but it ultimately only plunges her into more extreme grief. Pope’s tone and imagery articulate Eloisa’s past state of happiness with her present state of misery; yet, Eloisa does not want to, and perhaps never does, forget about Abelard. Spirituality presents a path for Eloisa to move past her grief by devoting her love to God rather than to Abelard, but Pope shows that Eloisa is not ready to let go of these memories, even if they cause her sorrow.

Pope uses diction and metaphor to express Eloisa’s jealousy of virgins who do not struggle with the feelings of sorrow that she experiences, such as when he writes:

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d (Lines 207-10).

Eloisa’s mind is burdened with her past happiness, in contrast with the nuns who can live happily, completely forgotten by the outside world with no memories keeping them attached to anything other than God. Pope uses imagery of brightness, sunlight, and ease to suggest how much simpler life is for those who have never loved and lost. Even Eloisa’s dreams are plagued with memories of Abelard. She mourns the relationship through the imagery of a spirit that slips through her “empty arms” as “it glides away” (Line 238). Eloisa’s pain is rooted in memories of a blissful past contrasted with an unfulfilling life in the convent. Pope uses imagery of forgetting to state that only in death can one forget completely, with Eloisa remarking that only in death’s “oblivion” will she no longer think of her memories of Abelard.