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THE CHRISTIAN VISION of POPE's Eloisa to Abelard

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THE CHRISTIAN VISION OF POPE'S Eloisa to Abelard By ROBERT POHL KALMEY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUUIEMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1970 : For Pat Joys which earth cannot afford. ACKNOWJ.SDGSMENTS I have been sustained throughout this study by Reve-:al kind benefactors ^nd perc(_^-.t ive critics. Mr. C. A. Robertson and Mr. Francis C. Kaber encouraged my ^ ^y graduate work at the University of Florida in a vari<-tty of humane ways. An early draft of Chapter I received the benefit of close scruLiny from Mr. Robert A. Bryan, who also provided much-appreciated encourage- ent. Mr. Clifford Earl Ramsey, III, ar.d Mr. John David Walker, fellow graduate students at Rice University and the University of Florida, contributed in numerous and comprehensive ways to my understanding of Pope. f \, aid in specific matters, I wish to thank Mr. John A. Dussinger, a forraer colleague at the U. ve^sity of Illinois; and M^ss Sylvia Eckenroue, Miss Susan Kunkle, and Mr. .villiam T. Lunsfc 'i, Jr., for.uer students of mine at Shipp^nsburg ate College. Mr. John B. Pickaro and Mr. E. A. Hammond rcQU the stuny and offered helpful suggestions toward :..aproveiaent of it. I es ecially e^a grateful ro Mr. Aubrey L. Williams, wi J as director and benefactor lr\ iuy grr.duate study often provided me with needed discipline and criticism, and who encouraged me constantly .-y hit example: his precepcs ce ch but what his works inspire. xii . My wife assisted with the typescript, but this remains the least of my debts to her, as the dedication indicates R. P. X. Shippensburg State College April 14, 1970 XV TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABBREVIATIONS vi ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER I Pope's Eloisa to Abelard and "Those Celebrated Letters": 1 CHAPTER II "Rebel Nature" and 'Grace Serene" 26 CHAPTER III Literary Contexts: Ancient and Modern 98 CHAPTER IV The Sacramental Analogy in Eloisa to Abelard 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY 193 . .. , , ABBREVIATIONS Audra and Williams: Vol. I of The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, Emile Audra and Aubrey Williams, eds . Pastoral Poetry and An Essay on Criticism (London, 1961) Corres . : The Correspondence of Alexander Pope , ed. George Sherburn, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1956) ELH : A Journal of English Literary History Hebel ed.: The Works of Michael Drayton , ed . J. W. Hebel, with introductions, notes, and variant read- ings by K. Tillotson and B. H. Newdigate, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1961). JEGP ; Journal of English and Germanic Philology Kaye ed.: Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees : or. Private Vices, Publick Benefits , ed. F. B. Kaye 2 vols. (Oxford, 1924) Laws ; Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Everyman's Library, 2 vols. (London, 1963) Martin ed. ; The Poems, English, Latin and Greek, of Richard Crashaw , ed. L. C. Martin, 2nd ed . (Oxford, 1957). MP: Modern Philology PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America vi . PQ: Philological Quarterly Twick^ Ed^: vol II of the Twickenham Edition of the Poems I""^^ Geoffrey ' Tillotson, ed., rL 1^'"^''^^'' Lock and iBn^ ^e^ Other Poems, 3rd id. Watson ed. John Dryden. : Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essay _s_, ed. George Wat^nTTTols (London, 1962) . Wellington ed.: Alexander Pope: Eloisa to Abelard , ed James E. Wellington (Miami, Fla. 1965). Vll Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THE CHRISTIAN VISION OF POPE'S ELOISA TO ABELARD By Robert Pohl Kalmey June, 1970 Chairman: Dr. Aubrey L. Williams Major Department: English This study seeks to illuminate Pope's Eloisa to Abelard by investigation of its internal structure of words and images, its literary relationships, its cultural and intellectual contexts, and its meaning as an artifact. First, Eloisa to Abelard (1717) appears related to The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (1713) in very special ways hitherto unnoticed. Pope draws heavily upon Abelard 's letters, as well as Heloise 's, in order to heighten the passionate conflict of Eloisa by placing her drama inextricably within a liturgical and devotional context. Secondly, in Chapter II, the poem develops a resolution of Eloisa 's conflict between desire and devotion by dramatizing the action of divine grace upon her otherwise hopeless dilemma. Thus developed, the poem stands in opposition to many current developments in late 17th and early 18th century thought, especially in their religious and moral aspects. viii In Chapter III, Eloisa to Abelard is shown to utilize the heroic epistle of Ovid in not only formal ways, but thematic and structural ways as well, especially in regard to the dramatization of the human psyche under the twin disciplines of law and adversity. Also, thematic and structural relationships are found between Eloisa to Abelard and Drayton's Eng lands Heroicall Epistles (1597- 99) , which serve as a bridge L-dtween the rigors of law and adversity on one hand, and the healing power of grace on the other. Eloisa to Abelard also appears to contain several possible echoes to significant thematic and structural details in some poems by Richard Crashaw. Chapter IV completes the study by showing the confessional and liturgical structure of the poem which supports its Christian vision of human nature struggling to justify itself before a just but merciful God, IX CHAPTER I POPE'S ELOISA TO ABEIARD AND "THOSE CELEBRATED LETTERS" In view of the customary austerity of Samuel Johnson's critical judgment, his praise of Pope's Eloisa to Abe lard (1717) is memorable: " The Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard is one of the most happy productions of human wit," Johnson then discusses the history of Abelard and Heloise, and concludes with an appraisal of Pope's poetical genius: the subject is so judiciously chosen, that it would be difficult, in turning over the annals of the world, to find another which so many circum- stances concur to recommend. We regularly interest ourselves most in the fortune of those who most deserve our notice. Abelard and Eloisa were conspicuous in their days for eminence of merit. The heart naturally loves truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this illustrious pair are known from undisputed history. Their fate does not leave the mind in hopeless dejection, for they both found quiet and consolation in retirement and piety. So new and so affecting is their story, that it supercedes invention and imagination ranges at full liberty without straggling into scences of fable. The story, thus skilfully adopted, has been diligently improved. Pope has left nothing behind him which seems more the effect of studious perse- verance sind laborious revisal. Here is particularly observable the curiosa felicitas , a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language.-'- 2 Johnson's image from gardening suggests an intimate relation- ship between nature and art, and more particularly the integral unity of Pope's subject matter and his art. If the story of Abelard and Heloise offers "a fruitful soil, " it deserved the "careful cultivation" of Pope's art. Eloisa to Abelard remains to this day sufficiently esteemed to appear in anthologies of literature, yet some modern critics have not admitted a central fact of Pope's poetical achievement — that unity of subject matter and art implied by Johnson in his image from gardening.^ Professor Reuben Brower, for example, sees Eloisa to Abelard as essentially a tour de force : "the essential poetic design of the poem is Ovidian, " and Pope has attempted, but only "very nearly succeeded in doing the impossible, in natural- izing an alien literary tradition and form. "^ To Professor Brower, Eloisa to Abelard is thus merely an English rendition of hybrid foreign materials, a French story cast in the mold of the Latin heroic epistle of Ovid. The heroic epistle, however, had been successfully written in English by Michael Drayton in his Englands Heroicall Epistles ( 1597-99) more than a century before Pope, and Drayton's work had remained popular throughout his lifetime and the seventeenth century.^ If an "alien" tradition had to be "naturalized" at all, it would seem that Drayton's poems had already completed the process. In the present chapter, we will seek to elucidate the basic Christian fabric of the poem in an effort to discover some of the ways by which a "careful cultivation" 3 helps to create,' out of a collection of old letters, a new poem with ito own sigr'-ificant meaning. One of the most influential modern scholars of medieval thought, Etienne Gilson, has praised Pope's Eloisa to Abelard for capturing the essential spirit of the twelfth century letters of A'belard and Heloise : "l would net take an oath," Professor Gilson declares, "that Pope is always faiT.hful to the thought of Heloise, But I know at least four of his lines which Heloise herself would have been sorry not to Lave written, so well do they express what the Abbess of the Paraclete suggests on each page, without daring to give it expression: Still en that breast enainour'd let me lie. Still drink delicicus poison from thy eye. Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be prest; Give all thou canst — and let me dream the rest. (121-24) If thiis is not what Heloise was thinking as she wrote Letters II a.nd IV of the Correspcnden3e, then it is useless for other poets to try to express her experience. The last line, especially, is priceless, "5 Professor Gilson thus notices in Pope's poem the preservation of the passionate intensity of Helcise's emotional struggle.
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