Elective Affinities: Love, Hatred, Playfulness and the self in Bernard and Abelard

Abstract

Ever since the Pierre Boulez's rise to celebrity in the early fifties, in the musical world at large, the French composer and Pierre Boulez have known and, Drummond supposes, appreciated one another. All this was necessary to manoeuvre ourselves into a position from which some light can be cast on elective affinities between St.Bernard and Abelard. It is a well-known fact that not only the history of Abelard and Heloise but also the confrontation between Bernard and Abelard has suffered from romanticising readings in which the tables of appreciation were turned. Now if we apply Peter von Moos' concept of twelfth-century playfulness caught between fixity and freedom, chemistry of a kind can be detected between the two antagonists, Bernard and Abelard. The author characterises the Bernardine culture of monastic playfulness focusing on the care of oneself to use a Foucault-like expression which Abelard is accused of having overdone. Keywords: Abelard; Bernard; elective affinities; monastic playfulness; Peter von Moos