This book offers invaluable references for travel, literature art...heck, even songs by Sting! I purchased my first copy while in art school where I couldn't keep straight all of the tales of love, betrayal and revenge in the ancient world. After four months in Italy and Greece it is worn, torn and lovingly wine stained, but it has served me well. I used it to decipher names on structures in the Roman Forum and to reveal the meaning of paintings in the Ufizzi. Without it my travels would not have been nearly as rich.

When a subject is as ineffably touching as the love story of Abelard and Heloise, it'll drive you continuously to dig more and deeper into the story. So after the novel "Stealing Heaven" by Marion Meade, the film based on the novel entitled with the same name, as well as the poignant musical "Rage Of The Heart" by Enrico Garzilli, in which Peter Abelard was sung by Michael Ball and Heloise by Janet Mooney, I read the book "The Letter Of Peter Abelard And Heloise". If all of the previous works I have encountered are artworks carrying more or less the creators' imaginations as well as their biases, then this book of letters, not only a true documentation of these two extraordinary human minds, but also a true portrayal of these two extraordinary human souls, provides the resources where you could reach the truth and make the judgment of your own.

Peter Abelard is a far more complicated human being than any artwork could deal. This is a man who was blessed with talent that's so distinctive, born with the charisma that's so appealing, and yet, tormented by the tragedy that's most appalling. The letters included reveal the connections of Abelard and Heloise years after both of them took vow to monastery life. You'd feel that the tragic consequence of their love relationship had created a different Abelard, from whom the words were more focused on his devotion to God and his advice to Heloise on the same subject, also his keenness on the his study, and his somewhat apathy towards their previous relationship, for which it could be easily mistaken as selfishness or indifference. But it'd be very unfair to blame Abelard for negligence. If we are able to see that this is a man who had suffered unimaginable infliction and unbearable humiliation, for which he himself believed to be the punishment for his sin, it becomes all so understandable of his words of remorse and his dedication. I believe that after the tragedy, he tried to hide his pain and forget the past in order to re-live his life. After all, he had paid the highest price for his love to Heloise. However, despite all these, his deep love and emotions towards Heloise could not be concealed but be felt between the lines written to her and from the Historia calamitatum: The Story of His Misfortunes, written by Abelard to a friend. Although their love that once reached its peak was forced to come to an end so suddenly, later on through letters it had been restored in an unusual spiritual way and on a new level of depth.

Heloise, an equally extraordinary human being as Abelard, on the other hand, was simpler and more straightforward, and yet, with a mind that's almost as acute and a heart that's braver and more passionate. When disaster struck upon these two lovers, she took the veil and entered the abbey in obedience to his wishes, only for her love to Abelard. Her sentimentality could be fully felt from her emotional outpouring of tears, grieves, and longings in the letters. The walls of Abbey never stopped her from loving Abelard, to whom the love she confessed and never denied to be beyond her love to God. Her perspective about true love is most incisive. Her talking about sensuality of flesh is very frank. When responding to Abelard on the subject of virtue and chastity, her strong arguments and copious quotations from various resources are simply brilliant. This is a woman, who had an exceptional beauty both inside and outside as well as the most admiring courage, that can't be judged conventionally.

The text translation is eloquent, literary, and beautiful. These letters, once were written many centuries ago and once were the only connection between two passionate hearts, are still compelling to read nowadays. In their own words, they told the story, in which they were teacher and student; friend and lover; husband and wife; brother and sister; and ultimately, two inseparable souls.

By any standard, the tale of Heloise and Abelard is an extraordinary story => brilliant young philosopher seduces brilliant beautiful student, passionate affair ensues, she gets pregnant, and they secretly marry -- but her relatives feel he has wronged her terribly, and in the middle of the night they break in and castrate him, after which both take refuge in the church. This book begins with a well-written introduction by Betty Radice, which gives an overview of the story. The letters, written years after the affair, are of great eloquence and depth of thought and feeling. Through them, the couple works to transform their 'earthly love'(which had continued to burn in Heloise's heart) into a spiritual bond that turns out to have similarly great passion and transcendence. Although the letters are steeped in religious debates and intrigues of the time, their beauty makes the love behind them seem as alive today as it was so many centuries ago ...

This is a facinating medieval romance, which I had actually never heard about until I read this book. Now that I have, however, I highly recommend it. The romance of Abelard and Heloise is a well known classic in France--it is high time the rest of us heard about it, too.

The story of Abelard and Heloise is "star-crossed lovers" yarn akin to something out of Shakespeare. This is the story of Peter Abelard, an outstanding scholar from twelfth century France, and Heloise, a beautiful young girl with a reputation for brilliance. Abelard is impressed with her, and manages to talk her uncle into making her his pupil. They fall in love, and eventually are secretly married and have a child. However, Heloise's uncle becomes suspicious of Abelard's motives and has him castrated. Abelard seeks refuge in the monastic life, and insists that Heloise follow his example. In the midst of their hardships, they keep in touch through the letters contained in this book. The letters are beautifully written and really manage to bring the story to life.

And I would just like to add that I don't agree with the reviewers who criticized Abelard. Abelard was a fine man, and there are no real grounds for anyone to suspect him of deceit. Sure, he was reluctant to renew his relationship with Heloise, but that is completely understandable. He had been mutilated, for crying out loud--the guy was humiliated. If he didn't love her, why wouldn't he say so outright? He had nothing to gain from lying. Cut the poor man a break! He was persecuted viciously enough during his lifetime. Do you people really have to keep pecking at him a thousand years after his death? Stop trying to turn a classic love story into an episode of Jerry Springer, okay? Potential readers, please don't let a few overly suspicious critics fool you--the book's demmed good. Buy it now!

This book is one of my favorite textbooks ever. The storylines are interesting, though perhaps not hilarious from a modern standpoint. They do however make excellent fodder for research papers and for a deeper understanding of the ancient world!

Terence's character development is superb. He takes stock characters of past Greek plays and turns them around so that the reader sees that people are not black or white. They are rather gray with good and bad qualities. His stories develop around his characters and in each comedy there is a message that is as timesless as the dialogue and interaction between characters in his plays. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised with the mastery with which Terence took Greek plays and adapted them for his Roman audience. The editing was good, and I think that there is a little something for all readers in the comedies of Terence. They are timeless classics that draw a quiet smile from the reader rather than an outright laugh.

Having read the letters of Pliny in the original Latin, I picked up a copy of this book to enjoy at a lesiurely pace (and without the hassel of looking up every 15th word!). I could not have been more pleased with Radice's translation of the work. She brings his stories to life, while maintaining the nuances found in the Latin. Wonderful!!

In high school I was an eager student of Latin, and so having read Caesar, Sallustius, Livius and many other great authors in the original, I was under the impression of having a good background in Roman history. And so it came that I didn't read anything about this particular historical period in at least fifteen years. Pliny's letters made me realise how superficial and cliche-ridden my understanding of that epoch was. It seems that as a high school student one is focused on the language to such a degree that the broader outlines of the enveloping history simply recede into the background.

As a successful, professional lawyer, as a member of a respected family, patron of a vast network of clients, as an accomplished writer, a more or less efficient administrator and prosperous land owner, Pliny embodies the quintessence of the political and cultural elite in the imperial capital. His carefully groomed letters reveal a fascinating picture of the mature Empire. What emerges from this book is a panoramic picture of a world that is not even very different from our own. Admittedly, the summit of the societal pyramid in 2nd century Rome was populated by a much smaller and more select group of people compared to the upper middle class in the advanced economies of today. But apart from the numbers, the life style of these two groups seems to have a lot of things in common. Take geographical mobility as an example. Pliny was originally descendant from the Como area in Northern Italy. Obviously, most of his time was spent in the capital, where he had a villa at the shores of the Thyrannean Sea. Additionally, he had an estate in what is now Tuscany. Finally there was his wife's estate in Campania, which is pretty far down the heel of the Italian peninsula. Much the same as today's professional elite, and undettered by vastly more primitive means of transportation and communication, Pliny shuttles back and forth between his estates, hundreds of kilometers apart. I take this as anecdotal evidence of the fact that, irrespective of historical epoch, elites have always transcended geographical distance in exercising their professional and social obligations. And many other aspects of Pliny's professional and social life remind us of our life world today. In sum, I find the texture and 'feel' of this collection of letters decidedly modern.

Another aspect that filters through Pliny's correspondence is the fact that Rome could be a very dangerous place to live, at least for those in the spotlights of the political scene. The Empire can, perhaps, be best described as a 'quasi-totalitarian' state. A bit like the China of today, or worse. We now from Suetonius' account how damaging and dangerous the paranoia of individuals such as Domitian could be for whoever opposed them. Pliny confirms this through many of his more or less oblique references to Domitian's despotic reign of terror.

The final bundle of letters contains the correspondence with the emperor Trajan, whom Pliny obviously reveres. The insights into the workings of Rome's administrative machinery to govern such a vast empire, are fascinating. Ultimately, one is astonished by the patience and competence that this particular emperor brings to bear to the many and sometimes trivial issues that his man in the East requests his advice on. One would think that Trajan would have better things to do. This testifies of the impressive efficiency and robustness of Rome's governance apparatus.

This collection of letters is thoroughly recommended to anyone interested in studying the predicament of our own time through the distorting but fascinating mirror of the past.

Pliny's letters are simply a delight. In this world of instant communication we forget the vast distances letters had to travel in the past and therefore the care that their authors put into writing them. Pliny is no exception to the rule, his letters are teeming with light and a love of life and contemplation. But if nothing else he gives us a window on an age that peaks the imagination like few others.

Granted this is pretty dry reading. Erasmus may not be the greatest writer. This does make for a turgid evening if one plans or desires to read it from cover to cover in one sitting. That said, Erasmus rode (if not found himself starting) the beginning wave of the great reformation. In his writings (which bear a not so slight foreshadowing to the great C.S. Lewis) Erasmus gives hope for all of us sinners in the guise of wit. An important addition to any library of classical literature.

Sorry, I tried several times to read this book. I hunted for passages that might interest me. Unfortunately, all I found was [the author] blowing his own horn. But then fantasy and science is about all that interests me. I'm sure someone with a historical bent would find this tale exhilarating.

To say the book has less than perfect unity in tone, as was written in the introduction, pg xv, is an understatement. The reader is never sure whether it is Folly or Erasmus who is talking. Perhaps for the goddess of Folly, contradictions and inconsistencies are the very follies desired - how are we mortals to tell?

And that is what we have here - all the inconsistencies, as, for example, mentioned in pages xiv-xv of the introduction again, that Erasmus wrote with the learned sophistry he denied schoolmen, philosophers, courtiers, theologians and monks. It's almost like Lao-Tzu and his Tao-Te Ching which includes the famous "The name that can be named is not the eternal name; the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao," only to have a later poet, Po Chi-Yi, quip about the 10,000 word effort to say what cannot be said in the first place. Yes, he did say at the end that 'I hate an audience that won't forget,' but that's not a courtesy he proffered to his opponents, of whom the criticism by Erasmus seems caviling, carping and nitpicking. He should have emulated his inpiration, Lucian with his 'philosophers for sale,' and made points simple like that here. It would be unfair, though tempting, to think that Erasmus took Quitillian to heart (pg. 81, 'what can't be refuted can often be parried in laughter') and disguised his voice in silly chaos for what has not been thought out cogently.

So, one is not quite sure whether wasting away a life in idleness, corruption or avarice as priests, bishops and monks are wont to do is the same kind of folly as the folly that comes from the innocence of the simple minded people or children, since Erasmus never quite made it crystal clear. Do we praise folly here but condemn it otherwise - without unity of tone and consistency of the vantage point of the writer, the whole thing just becomes a mess of confusion.

What Erasmus wanted to say does deserve our attention, but one wishes that he could have done it in a more fluid style and without all that pretentious classical references, for unlike Lucian, he lived not in that period. And certainly it could be better organized into chapters and sections, and used some editing to eliminate the endless repetitions, ensure consistency and unity of tone. Casson's 'Selected Satires of Lucian' is a much better read and is highly recommended over this one.

Edward Gibbon left only six incomplete manuscripts detailing his life and efforts at the time of his death. The editor, B. Radice, surpassing all previous efforts has edited them into a concise, remarkably fluid narrative. She has wisely included the various self-criticisms that his first editor, John Holroyd, left out of the first 1796 edition of the Memoirs and they reveal Gibbon to be not merely a formidable intellect and perspicacious observer of both English and Swiss society but also witty, a bit vain, self-indulgent, and more approachable than his reputation would suggest. Occasionnaly the odd sentence or fragment is repeated to ill effect and the fragmentary nature of this work provides its own frustrations: Gibbon will start discussing an intriguing subject such as the writing of the Decline and Fall and then suddenly shift to another subject. And even though Gibbon avoids the embarassing candor which crops up in Rousseau, one could argue that even in its unfinished form, there's a bit too much polish on the surface- Gibbon obviously sees his life as something of a finished product and the self-reflection of the earlier part becomes a bit too self-congratulatory later on. Moroever, the editors have provided two sets of footnotes for the seventh and eighth chapters - theirs and Gibbon's, which makes for a lot of back and forth reading. Still, Gibbon's account of the difficulties in finding time to read, to research, and to cultivate his intellect in the face of outside engagements, as well as his lucid observations on his family life, his friendships and his decision not to marry make for compelling reading. Rarely has such a figure provided so thorough an account of his life in so little space. For anyone who wants a clearly written and forthright account of why Gibbon came to be the man he was would surely profit from a persual of this engaging little work.

Pliny the Younger's letters offer a glimpse into the political and literay life of Rome at the height of her power. Included in the letters are two riveting accounts of the erruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and Pliny the Younger's correspondance with the likes of Suetonius and the Emperer Trajan. A beautifully made book with both English and the original Latin.