Abstract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s critical rewriting in his Nouvelle Héloïse of two foundational medieval works—the letters of Abélard and Héloïse, and Petrarch’s Canzoniere—reveals the crucial role that the medieval played in his own moral vision. This article both identifies a possible eighteenth-century source for Rousseau’s retelling of the Abélard and Héloïse story, and explores the function played by the medieval in his novel. The medieval in La Nouvelle Héloïse, as in his larger thought, was not a chronological, but an ethical category. It spoke not of historical events, but of his own “pays des chimères”. Because of its position outside of the accepted classical canons, it could incarnate an alternative vision commensurate with Rousseau’s own self-image as an outsider to the morally corrupted societies of his own time. Associated with the purer language of music, the medieval finally offered access to a higher spiritual plane, exemplified by Julie’s role as a Mary-like or even Christ-like figure. As such, the medieval ultimately served as an epistemological counter-model, an imaginary point of origin within a larger history of human virtue.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Alembert, J. Le Rond d’, & Diderot, D. (1751–1765). Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Vol. 17). Paris: Briasson, David l’aîné, Le Breton, Durand.
Anderson, D. L. (1971). Abélard and Héloïse: Eighteenth-century motif. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 84, 7–51.
Bayle, P. (1740). Heloïse. In P. Brunel, P. Humbert et al. (Eds.), Dictionnaire historique et critique (Vol. 2, pp. 712–717). Amsterdam, Leiden: The Hague, Utrecht.
Challandes, L. (2002). D’Abélard à Julie: un héritage renversé. Annales Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 44, 55–80.
Charrier, C. (1933). Héloïse dans l’histoire et dans la légende. Paris: Champion.
Duperray, E. (1997). L’or des mots. Une lecture de Pétrarque et du mythe littéraire de Vaucluse des origines à l’orée du XXe siècle. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne.
Feilla, C. (2004). From “sainted maid” to “wife in all her grandeur”: Translations of Heloise, 1687–1817. Eighteenth-Century Life, 28(2), 1–16.
Gervaise, F. A. (1720). La vie de Pierre Abeillard, abbé de S. Gildas de Ruis, Ordre de S. Benoist, et celle d’Heloïse son epouse, premiere abbesse du Paraclet. Paris: Jean Musier, François Barois.
Gervaise, F. A. (1723). Les veritables lettres d’Abeillard et d’Heloise, tirées d’un ancien manuscrit Latin trouvé dans la Bibliotheque de François Amboise Conseiller d’Etat. Paris: Jean Musier.
Hamman, C. (2006). La vie de Jean-Jacques Rousseau ou l’éternel retour du Tasse. Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, 106, 4.
Holsinger, B. (2005). The premodern condition: Medievalism and the making of theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kamuf, P. (1982). Fictions of feminine desire: Disclosures of Héloïse. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Koschorke, A. (2000). Joseph, Abélard, Saint-Preux. In Die heilige Familie und ihre Folgen. Ein Versuch. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Wissenschaft.
L’Aminot, T. (2002). L’amour courtois dans La Nouvelle Héloïse. In C. Piau-Gillot, R. Desné, & T. L’Aminot (Eds.), Modernité et pérennité de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean-Louis Lecercle (pp. 241–257). Paris: Honoré Champion.
Leborgne, E. (2002). De Saintré à Saint-Preux: culte amoureux et vassalité dans la première partie de La Nouvelle Héloïse. Annales Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 44, 81–99.
McDonald Vance, C. (1973). The extravagant shepherd. A study of the pastoral vision in Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse. Banbury: The Voltaire Foundation.
Montoya, A. C. (2010a). Naturalizing the commonplace. Two readings of Tasso during the long eighteenth century (Sévigné, Rousseau). In J. Koopmans & N. H. Petersen (Eds.), Legitimation of Authority. Leuven: Peeters (forthcoming).
Montoya, A. C. (2010b). Medievalism and enlightenment, 1647–1750 (Jean Chapelain to Jean-Jacques Rousseau). The Romanic Review (forthcoming).
Petrarca, F. (1992). R. Antonelli, G. Contini, & D. Ponchiroli (Eds.), Canzoniere. Turin: Einaudi.
Powell, M. (2000). Listening to Heloise at the Paraclete: Of scholarly diversion and a woman’s “conversion”. In B. Wheeler (Ed.), Listening to Heloise: The voice of a twelfth-century woman (pp. 255–286). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Riley, P. (2004). Character and conversion in autobiography: Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, and Sartre. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Rousseau, J. J. (1973). B. Gagnebin & M. Raymond (Eds.), Confessions. Paris: Gallimard.
Rousseau, J. J. (1993). H. Coulet (Ed.), La Nouvelle Héloïse. Paris: Gallimard.
Rousseau, J. J. (1995). Dictionnaire de musique. In B. Gagnebin & M. Raymond (Eds.), Œuvres complètes (Vol. 5). Paris: Gallimard.
Spaas, L. (1999). Rousseau et Abélard: la structure patriarcale menacée. In T. L’Aminot (Ed.), Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la lecture (pp. 107–116). Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
Stackelberg, J. (2001). Du paysage de l’amour au paysage de l’âme: Pétrarque et Rousseau. In P. Aron, S. Basch et al. (Eds.), Vérité et littérature au XVIIIe siècle. Mélanges rassemblés en l’honneur de Raymond Trousson (pp. 265–270). Paris: Honoré Champion.
Starobinski, J. (1971). Jean-Jacques Rousseau. La transparence et l’obstacle. Paris: Gallimard.
Starobinski, J. (1994). Rousseau e Tasso: lezione sapegna 1993. Turin: B. Boringhieri.
Stewart, P. (1995). Half-Title, or Julie Beheaded. The Romanic Review, 86, 36–43.
Walter, E. (1980). Le complexe d’Abélard ou le célibat des gens de lettres. Dix-huitième siècle, 12, 127–152.
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11061-011-9277-x
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Montoya, A.C. The Function of the Medieval in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse: A Rereading of the Abélard and Héloïse Motif. Neophilologus 94, 569–584 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-010-9204-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-010-9204-6