Do you know who Abelard and Heloise are? (details)

Only from Art History class, and maybe Rennaissance Literature. Not exactly household names.

I consider myself pretty well-read and I have no clue who they are. Ha.

http://classiclit.about.com/cs/articles/a/aa_abelard.htm

@weeveeship Read the details.

@MyNewtBoobs I read the details. ?

Nope.

@weeveeship I’m not asking you who they are – I know. I’m asking you if you know who they are (without Googling).

Yes, I do, and I’d be willing to hazard a guess that only a few generations ago that statement would have been true. But R&J have been taken up by the popular media, and A&H, for various reasons, haven’t (although you did see them in puppet form if you’ve seen Being John Malkovitch). These days anything in video form is going to have it all over anything in print as far as recognition is concerned.

@MyNewtBoobs Oh. Well, I had to Google them to know who they were, so no.

But why Abelard and Heloise? Even in the old days there were other sad stories:
Tristan and Isolde
Petrach and Laura Thanks Jeruba

Rather weird choice for whoever wrote that book to mention Abelard and Heloise as very popular, IMO.

Laura. Petrarch and Laura.

@Jeruba So then, in your opinion, what are the reasons A&H didn’t survive when R&J did?

@weeveeship Why am I asking about A&H, or why does Penguin Classics have that on the back for A&H and not other love stories?

@MyNewtBoobs The latter. (I edited my earlier response just a minute ago.)

I don’t really have an opinion on why they weren’t taken up by the popular media. Perhaps it was the unsavory aspects of their tale, or perhaps just that it didn’t wrap so neatly in three acts or five, with a tidy moral at the end. I am just saying that because they weren’t, they’re nowhere near so well known. I wouldn’t say they haven’t survived; their story can still be heard and told. But in a sense Shakespeare is a popular medium—certainly drama is. Being the subject of a Shakespearean drama is not enough to guarantee a place in the popular culture (how much do we hear about Coriolanus?), but if Shakespeare had written about A&H, instead or in addition, I think they would be as well known to us now as the Capulets and the Montagues.

@Jeruba I think R&J really lends itself to a) What teens want to read, because they do have a very immature relationship and teens tend to see their lives as very life or death, and b) a population that is looking for less intellectually complex material. Plus, A&H are so kinky…

@MyNewtBoobs That and R&J is assigned reading in most high schools. A&H do not even crack “recommended reading” lists at the schools I know.

Well, and that there is a work called Romeo and Juliet. Abelard and Heloise were historical figures, and we have their story and their correspondence, but there is no play or book called Abelard and Heloise that is comparable to the play by Shakespeare and a literary classic in its own right.

We have a poor culture training ^^ Mos of us never hear about them.
No matter if we self teach they are a mystery.

But google and wikipedia were comrades in arms ^^

Though i wonder… does it matter ? I mean how does it helps us today ? To know their life. I personally read Romeo ‘n company because i had to for school and Shakespeare bored me. Dickens or London were a lot more better in my opinion. [ but that’s just me ]

Anyway this is another matter.

He once was a ballsy son of a bitch. It didn’t last.

I had only a vague recognition of the names, and no clue as to why I recognized them at all.

I had no idea who they were. My thoughts when I saw the name Heloise went toward household hints.

Nowhere near as famous as Tristan and Isolde, of course.

I knew who they were, but I read a lot of history anyway. The vast majority of people brought up in Western-based culture, even educated ones, wouldn’t know who they are.

I think I lived next door to them a few years ago.

I do know who Laura Petrie is, though.

Yes, I do know who they are but I have both studied and taught medieval history.

No fucking way.

@answerjill Well, that’s good – I’d be scared if you taught medieval history but hadn’t studied it!

I have never heard of them. I knew who Tristan and Isolde were though.

@MyNewtBoobs—- Ha!