Pope doesn't give us any hints about how Abelard responds to Eloisa's epistle to him; we only get Eloisa's side of the story. That said, what can you gather about Abelard from reading Eloisa's letter to him? What sort of person does he seem to be?
Offer some text (no more than four lines) in support of your claim.
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Abelard seems to have been a seductive and manipulative wooer, something like Lucentio from "The Taming of the Shrew" who dresses up as Cambio in order to court Kate. For example, Eloisa says "When love approached me under friendship's name" (2657). Abelard used his authority as a tutor in order to gain access into Eloisa's circle of trust so that he could delude Eloisa into pleasing his sexual whims. Furthermore, judging from Abelard's passionate personality and his unfortunate castration it is unlikely that he would care about Eloisa's love.
The picture of Abelard that Eloisa paints is an individual that is faithful, devout, and one that has imparted an enduring love.
"Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, Where, mixed with God's, his loved idea lies." (Longman 2656)
Eloisa hides her love that intermixes with her devout love of God. Her piety and forced service in the convent prevents her to openly express the love that she still embraces.
Her writing juxtapositions many concepts that naturally oppose each other ideologically. Opposing her religion with eroticism, romantic pain to her religious fervor, and separation to unity with her God or Abelard.
I agree with Alonzo, that there is something not quite right about Aberlard. He is not the quintessential lover that Eloisa wishes to portray him as in her metaphors. He is no "angel" but more representative of the "joyless saints". Lines 257-260 leads the reader to believe that Abelard is a cold, calculating man that does not in fact return Eloisa's vehemence. She says " Ev'n thou art cold- yet Eloisa loves." She wishes him to " tear her from her God" but there is no response indicated. It feels like a one sided relationship and that Abelard is an absent lover.
Personally, I think Abelard has gotten a bad rap so far. What needs to be remembered is that this this letter is supposed to be coming from the lips of the still mourning Eloisa, and that she is surely looking to rationalize. A pertinent piece of evidence comes in two separate descriptions of his eloquence and charm by her; in the first, coming from a passage where she seems more reticent and reflective she states that "truths divine came mended from that tongue" (Line 66). She then later states, in a passage where is clear her passion is coming through, that he should "Come...as charming as thou art....[with] deluding eyes" (Lines 280-284). Here is an altogether more sarcastic and bitter description, something that leads me to believe Eloisa is conflicted between her God and her love, and that the truth about Abelard lays somewhere in between. In fact, she has almost abstracted him, made him a binary opposition to God rather than a man, and in that way done him a grave injustice. We simply cannot derive a wholly reliable picture from this passage.
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