Peter Abélard was a brilliant theologian and teacher in 12th-century Paris. He fell in love with his equally gifted student Héloise, with savage consequences and a forced separation. This famously tragic romance was described first in a dramatic correspondence between the separated lovers, and their history has been retold in many different forms—poetry, fiction, drama, film. It is a compelling story, and so is the story of the storytelling. We will be reading both—the story as it survives from the words of the lovers themselves, and as reimagined or revisited in the words of others—from medieval origins through Enlightenment and Romantic culture, on into modern times. We will study certain versions of the story closely for what they can show us about the mind and literary imagination of their period cultures, as well as the many possibilities of interpretation one historical text can contain and create: including first the original letters, where Héloise and Abélard themselves interpret the story they lived, Pope’s great poem Eloisa to Abelard, and excerpts from Rousseau’s novel Julie, or the New Héloise, with a selection of related material by others who rewrite or reread this story, from the high serious to the not so serious, like the puppet show in Being John Malkovich. There will be research in both original and critical sources, with emphasis throughout on the sequence topic of history and imagination.