Eloisa to Abelard

Pope uses various literary devices including rhetorical questions, alliteration, metaphor, imagery, and personification to capture Eloisa’s despair, hope, sorrow, and tender feelings toward Abelard. Rather than depicting Eloisa as a pitiful victim, he chooses to depict her as a tragic heroine. In describing Eloisa’s painful experiences, he shows her strong character and desire to overcome hardship.

Pope also shows that Eloisa is sensitive and thoughtful, as she is constantly questioning her choices and reflecting on the truth. Pope uses rhetorical questions to show this aspect of Eloisa’s character, such as when Eloisa asks, “[w]hat means this tumult in a vestal’s veins?” (Line 4) and “[w]hy feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?” (Line 6). Eloisa curses the rocks in the convent’s grottos and caverns, where she prays on her knees. Though she is a nun in the convent, Pope has Eloisa criticize the shrines and the nuns who worship them, using metaphor to compare the nuns to the lifeless statues. Eloisa states that she has not forgotten her life before the convent, and she has not become cold and passionless.

Alliteration, or the