Pope's Eloisa to Abelard: Verse Epistle & Writing to the Moment

[00:00:00]hello everyone welcome back to my channel close reading with me doctor Octavia Cox today I'm going to be talking about Alexander Pope's poem le Weiser to Abelard which was published in 1717 it was one of Pope's most popular poems in his own lifetime and indeed four decades afterwards well into the 19th century the poem for example was called most poetical by William Wordsworth the dominant literary figure in the Romantic period the period followed Pope's literary period and we're just said that in 1842 so well into the Victorian age today I want to consider one of the reasons why I think Eloisa to Abelard was so popular which is this sense of immediacy that is written into the very fabric of the poem I see Eloisa tabloids as a precursor to the epistolary novel form so the epistolary novel is a novel which in which the story is told through a series of letters the epistolary novel is a form that dominated the literary marketplace in the mid and latter half of the 18th century so I'm going to show how in the narrative poem and ariza to Abelard hope develops the same techniques to create effects of immediacy and the effect of what's called writing to the moment that writers of the epistolary novel would go on to adopt later in the 18th century and I really like this picture of a Louisa to our Lord I think it's illustrative of what I'm going to be talking about because even as Eloise imagines kissing Abelard she's still there clutching her pen and ready to write remember if you like what I do here then like this video and subscribe to my channel subscribing means that you'll see my new weekly videos when they're posted and it really does help me out in YouTube's algorithm Eloisa to Abelard is a narrative poem meaning it tells a narrative it tells a story in this case it's the story of a louisa who is reflecting on and contemplating and thinking about her long lost love and lover Abelard who for various reasons mainly the disapproval of relatives cannot be together as the name of the poem suggests Eloisa to Abelard the poem is a verse epistle and that means that it's a letter in the form of a poem so verse poem epistle letter it's a letter from Eloisa written to Abelard Eloisa to Abelard so pope explains the background and the story in the argument which is prefixed to the poem as it appears in the work so the poem was first published in Pope's works of 1717 you can see the title page there on the left and in the argument the story is explained Abelard and Eloise are flourished in the 12th century they they're real historical people they were two of the most distinguished persons of their age in learning and beauty but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate passion after a long course of calamities they retired each to a convent so Eloisa had to become a nun and consecrated the remainder of their days to religion it was many years after this separation that a letter of a Ballards to a friend which contained the history of his misfortunes fell into the hands of Eloisa this awakening all her tenderness occasioned those celebrated letters out of which the following is partly extracted which gives so lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature virtue and passion so the very basic story then is that Eloise and Abelard are parted lovers Abelard has written a history of his misfortunes as he sees them and any reason reads them and is very hurt by them and the poem records her response you'll also know which will become important when we think about epistolary novels that there's this sort of real life back history that's given so there dear tying in this poem into this real life facts apparently about the story I want to start with a very quick history of the verse epistle for so poetry written someone in a letter eloise to Abelar draws on Ovid's Herrera DS translated as letters of heroines Ovid was a classical Roman poet so of its letters of heroines remained popular during the 18th century very probably inspired by Pope's poem and this here on the screen is an edition from 1730 to which you can just make out at the bottom there and in fact it's James Boswell's copy Boswell you may have heard of as the biographer of Samuel Johnson Johnson is the great 18th century literary critic and it says you can make out in a handwriting there on the left this book I bought Inverness when dr. Johnson and I were together so I carried it with me during our Hebrides and expedition James Boswell so we can surmise that Samuel Johnson and James Boswell read this during their famous Scottish tour of its letters of heroines are a collection of epistolary poems written ostensibly by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology the letters are an address to their supposedly heroic lovers who have actually mistreated or neglected or abandoned them in some way one of the letters for example is from Dido to Aeneas so he had deserted her and she had sacrificed herself on their marriage bed and you may have heard of Dido's lament for example which is about the same same story another example is Medea to Jason the Argonaut after he abandoned her to marry Creusa despite Medea having been instrumental to his acquiring off the Golden Fleece for which he Jason is celebrated so official 12 for example opens scorned Medea helpless exile asks her recent husband can it be that you cannot spare time from your kingdom the Pope was not the first by any means to draw on Ovid's letters of heroines but he did help to popularize it in the 18th century the verse epistle from the scorned abandoned woman then has a long history what is perhaps new in Pope's poem is that the left the power of the letter form is described within the poem itself we see Eloisa read letters outlining a Ballards misfortunes and Pope presents her responses with immediacy effectively we readers experience her emotions as she reads a Ballards letters soon as they letters trembling I enclose that well-known name awakens all my woes Oh name forever sad forever dear still breathed in sighs still assured with a tear I tremble to wear of my own I find some dire misfortune follows close behind line after line my gushing eyes overflow led for a sad variety of woe now warm in love now withering in thy bloom lost in a convent solitary glue so obviously this is set in the present tense and but there are those the remembers of immediacy that bring it kind of even more close up in the face of the reader if you like so it opens this passage here as soon as I am close so there we are in the moment with her as she encloses the letter as she opens the letter and that sense of immediacy is increased with the words you know as soon as were there at the very moment and the sense of immediate feeling is enhanced by use of words such as trembling and awakens that well-known name awakens all my rows so when she encounters his name Abelard on the page her feelings are brought back to life we see her seeing his name written on the page and in this way we can say that it's metatextual which means that it's text that is kind of concerned with itself as text so in the poem Eloisa is writing about reading other writing and obviously that goes on to be fundamental to the epistolary novel which we'll get onto in a minute because obviously in epistolary novels quite a lot of what's written about is a character saying I received your letter this is how I feel about it they then send off their letter back to their friend or whoever and their friend them right so I've received your letter and this is how I feel about it so there's quite a lot of that kind of meta textual activity of characters talking about reading and writing so back to the ponen on the fourth line still breathed in sighs still assured with a tear we've got this repetition of still still and that can decide if continuing into the present moment and it's doubly repeated and this highlights the immediacy Eloisa is saying I still feel like this I still feel like this I tremble to where ever my own I find so in the word tremble there's obviously a repetition of trembling from the opening line as if continuing the same emotion and apprehension and when she reads his name we were told earlier it awakens all her woes and likewise when she finds her own name written down in the papers she's reading it makes her tremble so she's responding to their written names on the page of the letter that she's reading so I tremble to wherever my own name find it's almost as if she's kind of reading searching for a mention of herself line after line my gushing eyes overflow it's as if we we see her going through the letter line after light now warm in love now withering in the bloom and so we've got a repetition of now now which of course again brings us very much up to this moment now right here and the echoes the still still of earlier so Pope is building at a kind of tableau of immediate moments piled on top of each other and we have these kind of contradictory images come up as we're led through them so now warm now withering lost in a conference solitary gloom her sense of being lost and alone in situation so in her external world in the convent contrasts with the feelings of warmth and immediacy and connection and life that the letters bring her internal world and the final line draws an explicit contrast between the almost overwhelming passion provoked by the letter and her actual solitary state and there's a double play on the word lost as she's been reading the bloom of the convent has been lost to her she's lost in the letters but at the same time now that her life is spent lost in a convent the world of passion has been forever lost to her I want to think a bit more about this idea of immediacy as though Eloise's thoughts are brought forward to us readers as they come into her mind we get an impressionistic sense of a mind in action and the ebb and flow of thoughts as they come and as they go so this is the very opening of the poem in these deep solitudes and awful cells where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells and ever musing melancholy reigns what means this tumult in a vessels veins vestal their meaning virgin what means this tumult in a vessels veins why Rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat why feels my heart it's long forgotten heat yet yet I love from Abelard it came and Eloisa yet must kiss the name so the poem opens with a sense of heavy contemplation we've got three lines of long vowel sounds that slow down and elongate the lines and you really have to read them slowly and then we move to the question what means this tumult in a vessels veins and the vowel sounds become shorter and less elongated so drawing attention to the contrast between the location the deep solitudes and awful cells and the other musing melancholy of the nunnery and this this current this ongoing and that this marks a transition from the general environment to her specifically to this particular person so this tumult within her body within her veins obviously representing blood and life and pulses and so on so we have the three opening lines versus the one line question and there's this partial separation of the opening description of her surroundings and the one line Clause the question that relates to her internal world and note the two comma endings of the first couplet and then a semicolon at the end of the third line which marks a heavier break from the parent poems very opening then Eloise's in a world is separated from her external world and then we have two more crutches questions in much quicker succession it's as if her mind has been kind of brought to life not in nun-like pensive contemplation but in immediate thoughts and feeling so I wrote my thoughts why feels my heart and this sets up what will be important in the rest of the poem the roving of her thoughts as she feels different things and that readers see the roving of her thoughts that essentially is the subject matter of the poem and thinking about the structure obviously it has a kind of balance structure in these opening three lines and that you have three lines and then you have another three lines kind of in conversation with each other or balancing each other out you've got the three slow lines that describe the external world followed by the three quicker lines that articulate Eloise's inner world and these questions that Eloise is posing to herself that she's asking herself and these three questions show us Eloise's mind in action what does it mean why am I thinking this why do I still feel this way and I'm sure all of us who have kind of had these moments of hearts ache and and so on that those are the kinds of questions that you ask yourself what does it mean why do I think this why do I feel this way and then we have the beautiful interruption the beautiful moment yet yet I love and this beautifully interrupts and disturbs the rhythm of the heroic couplets that we've had so far so each mono syllable has equal kind of emphasis placed on it and we've got a hard pause that exclamation mark and the - and this is the first caesura so the first pause in the middle of the line that we've had so far in the poem and you'll notice that all the lines above this one don't have a pause in the middle the line so this hard break interrupts the rhythm of the poem as if this thought interrupts her own self questioning the answer strikes her the hard pause lets this thought then hanging the air in mid line draws attention to itself through its kind of oddity we've also got another another repetition so setting it up for when it will appear later in the poem here it's yet yet so earlier I was talking about the still still and then now now but yet yet again suggests time that continued into the presence and setting up again this idea of immediacy of recounting feelings happening right now here in this moment and then we have the repetition of yet again in the final line we can see Pope's repeated use of the rhetorical three just in this small section and the first three lines describing the nunnery and then the three questions and now it's the three yet in two lines yet yet I love from ABBA logic came and Eloisa yet must kiss the name Pope beautifully links to to ideas in the repeated use of yet yet yet she loves so she yet must kiss the name so Eloisa is reading a Ballards letters and when she comes across a Ballards name written on the page she kisses his name written on the page because she loves him still and the final image from Abelard it came and Eloisa yet must kiss the name draws on the kind of interesting relationship between a person's physical being and them represented via the written word and this in eighteenth-century epistolary novels this is also and indeed in personal letters as well this is a kind of theme that comes up again and again this idea of a letter kind of standing in for the physical presence of a person so Abelar it name here is a substitute for a Ballards person but also a Ballards letter as a substitute for him so Eloisa kiss is the name on the page because she cannot kiss the man the letter is from Abelard it is a physical kind of embodiment of him he has touched it she is now touching it so they've almost physically touched by kissing this page that he has touched she is almost kissing him I want to think now again a bit more about this idea of immediacy and it being integral to the very fabric of the poem and that's called writing to the moment the technique of writing to the moment is associated with the epistolary novel form and the term was coined by the great kind of 18th century novelist Samuel Richardson in his famous epistolary novel Clarissa Clarissa was published about 30 years after Eloisa to Abelard it was published as you can see from the bottom there in 1748 and it continued being published until and the next year until 1749 Clarissa was a groundbreaking novel and one of the most important of us in the whole of the 18th century and in Clarissa Richardson has one of the characters called Lovelace at an incredibly pivotal moment in the plot I don't worry I won't give away but just as Lovelace is about to do something absolutely atrocious absolutely ghastly at this moment Richardson shows us Lovelace writing this I have time for a few lines preparative - what is what is to happen in an hour or two and I love to write to the moment what may the next two hours produce obviously this doesn't add anything to the plot it's not about plot it's not really about narrative but it does add a sense of realness a sense of immediacy we see this fictional character obviously but we see this fictional character presented to us as though the story hasn't happened yet as though it's unfolding we have this fictional character anticipating what might be about to happen and recording their thoughts in the heat of the action this is writing to the moment so we're not being told a story in the past tense we're being told a story as if it's still in the process of happening and we're shown characters writing their thoughts in this moment as things are happening or are about to happen so it brings a sense of immediacy record in the moment as well because it's as though this story hasn't happened yet we're sitting here with Lovelace worrying about what is indeed going to happen over the next two hours or so back to a Louisa we'd just read the opening lines of the poem we then encounter Eloisa as she's writing out a Ballards name as if she's starting a response letter to him as if she's writing out dear Abelard dear fatal name I write it not my hand the name appears already written Rasha out my tears so we experience a Louisa kind of in the process of writing Eliezer speaks to her hand asking it not to write a Ballards name not to start this letter but almost unconsciously her hand has already written his name and then her tears are washing it away so the high friends leave breaks and pauses but they compressed the time in between so it reads as a series of kind of immediate moments writing to the moment as I've already mentioned became an important feature of other writing in the 18th century but it's perhaps more subtle in Pope but as I hope I've shown eloise to Abelard is an important precursor in terms of technique to epistolary novelists like Samuel Richardson and I just want to give you another quick example this time from Richardson's Pamela from 1740 again published after Eloisa to Abelard and and this is a as a picture that describes a scene within the novel in which mr. be that's the man who's entering the room and encounters Pamela as she's writing some of her letters and I want to give you an example of the kind of letter that Pamela is writing the kind of conceit of the novel Pamela is that it's a series of letters from Pamela back home to her parents kind of recounting wildy I was going to say adventures were all the kind of misfortunes that happened to her in the house off the rakish mr. B who keeps trying to attack Pamela essentially and this is what she writes and I just want you to think about how the same techniques we can see here in Pamela's writing as we could see in Eloise's I can hardly write yet as I can do nothing else I know not how to forbear yet I cannot hold my pen how crooked and trembling the lines I must leave off till I can get quieter fingers why should the guiltless tremble so when the guilty can possess their minds in peace you can see how Richardson develops the same form and techniques as Pope had done in order to convey a sense of immediacy the sense of the us readers are experiencing a mind in action the use of hyphens to compress time the use of yet and the present tense the use of a character kind of describing their state as things are happening so words like trembling and the rhetorical self-questioning mode I want to close by reading another passage from any reader to Abelard that shows the metatextual writing to the moment elements in action we also get a real sense of immediacy of seeing this tortured mind as its roving around its conflicted thoughts it shows the oscillation of her mind one moment she wants Abelard to write to her and the next moment she doesn't then she wants to forget him and then she wants off think she wants him to forget her yet right Oh write me all that I may join Greece to thy griefs and echo sighs to thine nor foes nor fortune take this power away is my Abelard less kind than they tears still are mine and those I need not spare love but demands what else was shared in prayer no happier tasks these faded eyes pursue to read and weep is all they now can do ah come not write not think not once of me and I'll share one pang of all I felt for thee BIOS I quit thy memory resign forget renounce me hate what air was mine fair eyes and tempting locks which yet I've you long loved adored ideas all idea thanks for listening I hope you've enjoyed perhaps enjoy isn't quite the right word but I hope it's been illuminating looking at Eloise's roving mind in action if you like what I do then subscribe to my channel to see more of my weekly videos close reading classic literature