Eloisa to Abelard

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1717

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Meter and Form

“Eloisa to Abelard” is written in heroic couplets, a form Pope perfected. In a heroic couplet, every group of two lines, or couplets, rhymes, and each line is written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is a poetic meter where each line has 10 syllables or beats (or five “feet”), and each beat consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter was the most popular metrical form of the Neo-Classical age in poetry (1700-1740). Many epics of the past were written in iambic pentameter, which is how this form came to be known as the “heroic” couplet. Pope also both end-stopped lines as well as enjambed lines, meaning that some of the lines of the poem end at the end of a sentence, while other lines continue beyond the end of a line. An example of an end-stopped line is “Oh curs’d, dear horrors of all-conscious night!” (Line 229), because the line stops where the punctuation marks end the sentence. An enjambed couplet would be, “I hear thee, view thee, gaze o’er all my charms / And round thy phantom glue my clasping arms” (Lines 233-34), because the sentence continues on to the next line with the word “and.”

Metaphor

Pope uses metaphors to express Eloisa’s feelings for Abelard via poetic images. When Eloisa explains why she did not want to marry Abelard, she compares love to a bird that “spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies” (Line 76) when marriage happens. This metaphor highlights the contrast between romantic love as a spiritual and freeing experience versus romantic love in the conventional understanding as a precursor to marriage and family. The image of a bird flying away suggests that love suffers due to the conventions of legal and religious society that Abelard and Eloisa encountered in medieval Europe.

The metaphor of Eloisa’s love as a chain that will never break signifies immortal love. Eloisa considers that death is the only thing that will cure her love for Abelard. Pope compares her love for Abelard to a “chain” (Line 173), a metaphor that captures the burden of Eloisa’s yearning for Abelard’s love once more. Emphasizing the hope for immortality in love, Pope writes that Eloisa’s and Abelard’s dust will be mixed together in one same grave after their deaths, stating, “And wait till ‘tis no sin to mix with thine” (Line 176). Eloisa finds a morbid comfort in the idea that their love will no longer be a sin once they have died. Pope’s metaphor of Abelard’s and Eloisa’s dust mixing in one grave is a metaphor for immortal love, offering solace that after death Eloisa’s love will survive.

Imagery

Pope uses imagery to express Eloisa’s hardships and explore her thoughts on her situation in the convent. Pope juxtaposes imagery of coldness with warmth in his descriptions (Lines 110-11), suggesting that Eloisa’s warm, loving nature makes it difficult for her to adjust to the life of a nun, a life in which she must deny worldly pleasures. The substitution of Abelard with God is shown in the imagery Pope uses of Eloisa’s eyes fixed on Abelard rather than the religious symbol of the Cross: Though she has professed her faith and already been forced into the convent, her heart still longs for the freedom of life outside of the religious order. Pope uses fire imagery to capture Eloisa’s forbidden feelings for Abelard. Though Eloisa tries to grieve her mistakes, mourn the past, and change herself, when she thinks about the sin that she and Abelard committed by living together, she still “kindle[s] at the view” (Line 185). She does not entirely regret what she did, feeling happiness at the thought of being with Abelard again.

In using contrasting imagery, Pope connects celibacy with frigidity, coolness, and calmness, and love or sexuality with warmth, fire, and passion. He contrasts Eloisa’s emotional and mental state with that of Abelard, who has “no pulse that riots, and no blood that glows” (Line 252). Pope uses the word “glowing” to describe Eloisa’s guilty dreams (Line 230), showing that Eloisa is still consumed with her passion for Abelard. While Eloisa is lively, Abelard is compared to “the dead” (Line 258). Fire imagery and a reference to the Roman goddess of love, Venus, emphasize Eloisa’s connection with warmth and heat and Abelard’s with coldness, stillness, and a kind of living death. Pope suggests in his imagery that living in a monastery, as Abelard does, is a rejection of life, and that Eloisa’s only option for happiness in the convent is to repent and hope for an afterlife where she and Abelard will be united.