A Textual Affair:
The Story of Abelard & Héloise in txt.
Welcome to one of the most passionate love stories of all time – the txt version!
'A Textual Affair' is a retelling of the story of Abelard and Heloise in txt. - a doomed love affair based on the actual letters of a 12th century French philosopher and his student.
You can watch the story unfold by following the correspondence of P_Abelard and M_Heloise on Twitter or read it in full on this blog. Note: This blog lists the last post first and runs in reverse as they were written. In order to read A Textual Affair in chronological order, click here (thanks Adam). Alternatively, you can download the full PDF here.
Peter Abelard was one of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages. His pupil Heloise became his lover and eventually the mother of his child. Refusing to marry him publicly, she entered a convent while he, having been savagely punished for his transgression, became a monk. Then began their famous correspondence in which, in just a handful of letters, still extant, she proved to be his intellectual equal and an eloquent chronicler of their stormy relationship.
But what if it had been today? What if they had chosen the intimate and immediate medium of SMS text messaging?
In A Textual Affair I equip Heloise and Abelard with mobile phones and select the best of their texts to each other from the time their relationship begins to blossom to the day of its demise. Each communication is necessarily brief, but over time the bite-sized texts become a chronicle of their lives together and apart, in places an erotically-charged diary, at times a moving expression of loss and separation.
If you've never read their story, A Textual Affair is a version ideally suited to the txt generation. Modern technology meets medieval history.
