Rough Wilderness: The Imaginary Love Poems of the Abbess Heloise

Rough Wilderness chronicles one of the most famous tales of love, betrayal and redemption. Heloise and Abelard were medieval scholars whose taboo-breaking affair shocked clerics and fellow scholars and assured the star-crossed pair a place in history. These poems are contemporary in subject and tone, but also explore some of the more complex modes that have come down to us, including sonnets, pantoums, villanelles and others.