Eloise to Abelard #2

Historical fiction is defined in the Handbook to Literature as “Fiction whose setting is in some time other than that in which it is written.”(256) Eloisa to Abelard is an example of Historical fiction because its author, Alexander Pope, wrote the letter in the seventeen hundreds and set the story in the twelfth century. He based his work on the French and English translations of the original letters and adapted them to the fit the sensibilities of his seventeenth century audience’s perception of the middle ages. Through his writing in the perspective of Eloisa, he tells the story of her longing and her angst about being torn between her love for Abelard and her love for the Lord he was suppose to serve. “Pope brings these internal struggles to the surface by externalizing them in bold dramatic rhetoric” (Norton Anthology, 2532). An example would be on page 2543 Eloisa exclaims “line after line my gushing eyes o’erflow, Let through a sad variety of woe; Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom, Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!” Exclamations like these are littered throughout this piece as Pope weaves Eloisa’s indecision about whether or not she wants Abelard to come for her and free her from the convent or that she should try and forget about the passionate love the two of them shared and devote herself to the God she also professes to love. Pope does an excellent job of writing in the female voice and capturing the passion of a young nun who was forced into the service of her God.