Eloise to Abelard 1

Figurative language can be defined as an “Intentional departure from the normal order, construction, or meaning of words” as it is defined by our Handbook to Literature on page 217, but can also be used as a code of sorts to write to someone and discuss personal thoughts that you do not want publicly aired. Figurative language abounds in Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard. These translations of actual letters written in the twelfth century are dripping sexual references and images of love, though they are hidden in figurative language. Though Eloisa and Abelard were very much in love during their time, they were kept apart by Eloisa’s father and Abelard’s being in the Catholic Church and a hermit. In her letter to Abelard, Eloisa talks about he love for Abelard and its far reaching effects on her when she say’s “Still rebel nature holds out half my heart; Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain, Not tears, for ages taught to flow in vain”(Norton Anthology, 2533). Though it is thinly veiled in figurative language, she I telling Abelard that just thinking about him can drive her insane with desire and no amount of praying and fasting can make it stop. When she refers to Abelard on page 2535 she calls him “Barbarian” and refers to “that bloody stroke” and that their “sin was common, common be the pain.” She is referring to the sexual act that cause them both to be in the predicament that they are in now. Eloisa at once rails at him for causing her imprisonment in the nunnery, and longing for him to come to her because she cannot adapt to the celibate life of a nun after sinning so spectacularly with him.
Figurative language is important in Eloisa to Abelard because it shows the longing Eloisa has for Abelard and it expresses the creativity of a young woman who is very much in love with a man that she can never have again.