"Exquisite Torture": The Autoeroticism of Pope's Eloisa

This essay explores the autoerotic implications of Pope's Eloisa to Abelard. Left to grapple with an overwhelming desire and the contradictory setting which houses this desire, Eloisa must invent ways to cope with the "exquisite torture" that she experiences as a result of her isolati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Eighteenth-century studies 2007-07, Vol.40 (4), p.615-629
Main Author: Carson, Anne Elizabeth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British & Irish literature
Desire
Embodiment
English literature
French language
Imagination
Language history
Love poetry
Memory
Narrative poetry
Nuns
Pleasure
Poetry
Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Sexual self stimulation
Sexuality
Statues
Women
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Summary:This essay explores the autoerotic implications of Pope's Eloisa to Abelard. Left to grapple with an overwhelming desire and the contradictory setting which houses this desire, Eloisa must invent ways to cope with the "exquisite torture" that she experiences as a result of her isolation. The heroine, I argue, creates a self-reflexive world of fantasy and sexuality from deep within the solitude of the monastery. As she is the only one participating in this sensual drama, the impassioned nun fuels an onanistic subtext that subversively reacts to a restrictive view of human sexuality.
ISSN:0013-2586
1086-315X
1086-315X
DOI:10.1353/ecs.2007.0038