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When the name Heloise is spoken, collective memory almost automatically turns to another figure: Pierre Abélard. Their love story, overwhelming, scandalous, tragic, has, over time, become one of the founding myths of Western romantic imagination. Yet to stop there is to betray precisely what makes Heloise an exceptional figure. For Heloise is not merely the
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When we think of Christmas, we most often think of the tree, Santa Claus, lights, and huge family tables filled with laughter and arguments (yes, that happens too, let’s admit it peacefully!). But in the Middle Ages, how was Christmas experienced? First of all, Christmas festivities did not begin on December 8 as they do
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Every year on October 31st, for the past thirty-six years now (at least in this earthly life of mine), I’ve heard people criticize the day of Samhain, or Halloween as it’s now called, in the most absurd ways imaginable. Some call it an evil day, devoted to the devil; others dismiss it as nothing more
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In collective memory, the name of Cesare Borgia evokes intrigue, crimes, and cruelty. The “black legend” of the Borgias painted him as a Renaissance monster—fascinating and dangerous, capable of killing brothers and betraying allies without remorse. Yet behind this mask of blood and fear lies a cultured, refined man, a talented strategist and visionary politician,
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“Eroticism is the approval of life all the way into death.” Georges Bataille At the heart of every authentic erotic experience lies a desire that goes far beyond physical pleasure: an ancient, almost religious need for total union, for the dissolution of boundaries between self and other, between flesh and the invisible. Georges Bataille described
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The landscape of love stories that have shaped history is vast, immense even, but few are as poignant and intense as that of Abelard and Héloïse. Theirs was a forbidden, painful, and contested love, yet one that left an indelible mark on literature and Western thought. But who were Abelard and Héloïse?Peter Abelard was one
Beyond Death 