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= Simone Weil =
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Introduction
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Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 - 24 August 1943) was a
French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. The mathematician
André Weil was her brother.
After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She
taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks due
to poor health and to devote herself to political activism. Such work
saw her assisting in the trade union movement, taking the side of the
anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War, and
spending more than a year working as a labourer, mostly in car
factories, so she could better understand the working class.
Taking a path that was unusual among 20th-century left-leaning
intellectuals, she became more religious and inclined towards
mysticism as her life progressed. Weil wrote throughout her life,
although most of her writings did not attract much attention until
after her death. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work became famous in
continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her
thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship
across a wide range of fields. A meta study from the University of
Calgary found that between 1995 and 2012 over 2,500 new scholarly
works had been published about her.
Albert Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times".
Early life
============
Weil was born in her parents' apartment in Paris on 3 February 1909,
the daughter of Bernard Weil (1872-1955), a medical doctor from
agnostic Alsatian Jews, who moved to Paris after the German annexation
of Alsace-Lorraine. Her mother, Salomea "Selma" Reinherz (1879-1965),
was born into a Jewish family in Rostov-on-Don and raised in Belgium.
According to Osmo Pekonen, "the family name Weil came to be when many
Levis in the Napoleonic era changed their names this way, by anagram."
Weil was a healthy baby for her first six months, but then suffered a
severe attack of appendicitis; thereafter, she struggled with poor
health throughout her life. She was the younger of her parents' two
children: her brother was mathematician André Weil (1906-1998), with
whom she would always enjoy a close relationship. Their parents were
fairly affluent and raised their children in an attentive and
supportive atmosphere.
Weil was distressed by her father having to leave home for several
years after being drafted to serve in the First World War. Eva
Fogelman, Robert Coles, and several other scholars believe that this
experience may have contributed to the exceptionally strong altruism
which Weil displayed throughout her life. From her childhood home,
Weil acquired an obsession with cleanliness; in her later life she
would sometimes speak of her "disgustingness" and think that others
would see her this way, even though in her youth she had been
considered highly attractive. Weil was generally highly affectionate,
but she almost always avoided any form of physical contact, even with
female friends.
According to her friend and biographer, Simone Pétrement, Weil decided
early in life that she would need to adopt masculine qualities and
sacrifice opportunities for love affairs in order to fully pursue her
vocation to improve social conditions for the disadvantaged. From her
late teenage years, Weil would generally disguise her "fragile beauty"
by adopting a masculine appearance, hardly ever using makeup and often
wearing men's clothes.
Intellectual life
===================
Weil was a precocious student, proficient in Ancient Greek by age 12.
She later learned Sanskrit so that she could read the Bhagavad Gita in
the original. Like the Renaissance thinker Pico della Mirandola, her
interests in other religions were universal and she attempted to
understand each religious tradition as an expression of transcendent
wisdom.
As a teenager, Weil studied at the Lycée Henri IV under the tutelage
of her admired teacher Émile Chartier, more commonly known as "Alain".
Her first attempt at the entrance examination for the École Normale
Supérieure in June 1927 ended in failure, due to her low marks in
history. In 1928 she was successful in gaining admission. She finished
first in the exam for the certificate of "General Philosophy and
Logic"; Simone de Beauvoir finished second. During these years, Weil
attracted much attention with her radical opinions. She was called the
"Red virgin", and even "The Martian" by her admired mentor.
At the École Normale Supérieure, she studied philosophy, earning her
DES (', roughly equivalent to an MA) in 1931 with a thesis under the
title "Science et perfection dans Descartes" ("Science and Perfection
in Descartes"). She received her 'agrégation' that same year. Weil
taught philosophy at a secondary school for girls in Le Puy and
teaching was her primary employment during her short life.
Political activism
====================
She often became involved in political action out of sympathy with the
working class. In 1915, when she was only six years old, she refused
sugar in solidarity with the troops entrenched along the Western
Front. In 1919, at 10 years of age, she declared herself a Bolshevik.
In her late teens, she became involved in the workers' movement. She
wrote political tracts, marched in demonstrations, and advocated
workers' rights. At this time, she was a Marxist, pacifist, and trade
unionist. While teaching in Le Puy, she became involved in local
political activity, supporting the unemployed and striking workers
despite criticism. Weil had never formally joined the French Communist
Party, and in her twenties she became increasingly critical of
Marxism. According to Pétrement, she was one of the first to identify
a new form of oppression not anticipated by Marx, where élite
bureaucrats could make life just as miserable for ordinary people as
did the most exploitative capitalists.
In 1932, Weil visited Germany to help Marxist activists who were at
the time considered to be the strongest and best organised communists
in Western Europe, but Weil considered them no match for the then
up-and-coming fascists. When she returned to France, her political
friends in France dismissed her fears, thinking Germany would continue
to be controlled by the centrists or those to the left. After Hitler
rose to power in 1933, Weil spent much of her time trying to help
German communists fleeing his regime. Weil would sometimes publish
articles about social and economic issues, including "Oppression and
Liberty" and numerous short articles for trade union journals. This
work criticised popular Marxist thought and gave a pessimistic account
of the limits of both capitalism and socialism. Leon Trotsky himself
personally responded to several of her articles, attacking both her
ideas and her as a person. However, according to Pétrement, he was
influenced by some of Weil's ideas.
Weil participated in the French general strike of 1933, called to
protest against unemployment and wage cuts. The following year, she
took a 12-month leave of absence from her teaching position to work
incognito as a labourer in two factories, one owned by Renault,
believing that this experience would allow her to connect with the
working class. In 1935, she resumed teaching and donated most of her
income to political causes and charitable endeavours.
In 1936, despite her professed pacifism, she travelled to the Spanish
Civil War to join the Republican faction. She identified as an
anarchist, and sought out the anti-fascist commander Julián Gorkin,
asking to be sent on a mission as a covert agent, to rescue the
prisoner Joaquín Maurín. Gorkin refused, saying she would almost
certainly be sacrificing herself for nothing, as it would be most
unlikely she could pass as a Spaniard. Weil replied that she had
"every right" to sacrifice herself if she chose, but after arguing for
more than an hour, she was unable to convince Gorkin to give her the
assignment. Instead she joined the anarchist Durruti Column of the
French-speaking Sébastien Faure Century, which specialised in
high-risk "commando"-style engagements. As she was extremely
short-sighted, Weil was a very poor shot, and her comrades tried to
avoid taking her on missions, though she did sometimes insist. Her
only direct participation in combat was to shoot with her rifle at a
bomber during an air raid; in a second raid, she tried to man the
group's heavy machine gun, but her comrades prevented her, as they
thought it would be best for someone less clumsy and near-sighted to
use the weapon. After being with the group for a few weeks, she burnt
herself over a cooking fire. She was forced to leave the unit, and was
met by her parents who had followed her to Spain. They helped her
leave the country, to recuperate in Assisi. About a month after her
departure, Weil's unit was nearly wiped out at an engagement in
Perdiguera in October 1936, with every woman in the group being
killed.
Weil was distressed by the Republican killings in eastern Spain,
particularly when a fifteen-year old Falangist was executed after he
had been taken prisoner and Durruti had spent an hour trying to get
him to change his political position before giving him until the next
day to decide.
During her stay in the Aragon front, Weil sent some chronicles to the
French publication 'Le Libertaire', and on returning to Paris Weil
continued to write essays on labour, on management, war and peace.
Encounter with mysticism
==========================
Weil was born into a secular household and raised in "complete
agnosticism". As a teenager, she considered the existence of God for
herself and decided nothing could be known either way. In her
'Spiritual Autobiography' however, Weil records that she always had a
Christian outlook, taking to heart from her earliest childhood the
idea of loving one's neighbour. Weil became attracted to the Christian
faith beginning in 1935, the first of three pivotal experiences for
her being when she was moved by the beauty of villagers singing hymns
in a procession she stumbled across while on holiday to Portugal (in
Póvoa de Varzim). While in Assisi in the spring of 1937, Weil
experienced a religious ecstasy in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli
Angeli—the same church in which Saint Francis of Assisi had prayed.
She was led to pray for the first time in her life as Lawrence A.
Cunningham relates:
Below the town is the beautiful church and convent of San Damiano
where Saint Clare once lived. Near that spot is the place purported to
be where Saint Francis composed the larger part of his "Canticle of
Brother Sun". Below the town in the valley is the ugliest church in
the entire environs: the massive baroque basilica of Saint Mary of the
Angels, finished in the seventeenth century and rebuilt in the
nineteenth century, which houses a rare treasure: a tiny Romanesque
chapel that stood in the days of Saint Francis—the "Little Portion"
where he would gather his brethren. It was in that tiny chapel that
the great mystic Simone Weil first felt compelled to kneel down and
pray.
Weil had another, more powerful, revelation a year later while
reciting George Herbert's poem 'Love III', after which "Christ himself
came down and took possession of me", and, from 1938 on, her writings
became more mystical and spiritual, while retaining their focus on
social and political issues. She was attracted to Catholicism, but
declined to be baptized at that time, preferring to remain outside due
to "the love of those things that are outside Christianity". During
World War II, she lived for a time in Marseille, receiving spiritual
direction from Joseph-Marie Perrin, a Dominican Friar. Around this
time, she met the French Catholic author Gustave Thibon, who later
edited some of her work.
Weil did not limit her curiosity to Christianity. She was interested
in other religious traditions—especially the Greek and Egyptian
mysteries; Hinduism (especially the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita);
and Mahayana Buddhism. She believed that all these and other
traditions contained elements of genuine revelation, writing:
Greece, Egypt, ancient India, the beauty of the world, the pure and
authentic reflection of this beauty in art and science...these things
have done as much as the visibly Christian ones to deliver me into
Christ's hands as his captive. I think I might even say more.
Nevertheless, Weil was opposed to religious syncretism, claiming that
it effaced the particularity of the individual traditions:
Each religion is alone true, that is to say, that at the moment we
are thinking of it we must bring as much attention to bear on it as if
there were nothing else ... A "synthesis" of religion implies a lower
quality of attention.
Later years
=============
In 1942, Weil travelled to the United States with her family. She had
been reluctant to leave France, but agreed to do so as she wanted to
see her parents to safety and knew they would not leave without her.
She was also encouraged by the fact that it would be relatively easy
for her to reach Britain from the United States, where she could join
the French Resistance. She had hopes of being sent back to France as a
covert agent.
Older biographies suggest Weil made no further progress in achieving
her desire to return to France as an agent—she was limited to desk
work in London, although this did give her time to write one of her
largest and best known works: 'The Need for Roots'. Yet there is now
evidence that Weil was recruited by the Special Operations Executive,
with a view to sending her back to France as a clandestine wireless
operator. In May 1943, plans were underway to send her to Thame Park
in Oxfordshire for training, but were cancelled soon after, as her
failing health became known.
The rigorous work routine she assumed soon took a heavy toll. In 1943,
Weil was diagnosed with tuberculosis and instructed to rest and eat
well. However, she refused special treatment because of her
long-standing political idealism and her detachment from material
things. Instead, she limited her food intake to what she believed
residents of German-occupied France ate. She most likely ate even
less, as she refused food on most occasions. It is probable that she
was baptized during this period. Her condition quickly deteriorated,
and she was moved to a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent.
After a lifetime of battling illness and frailty, Weil died in August
1943 from cardiac failure at the age of 34. The coroner's report said
that "the deceased did kill and slay herself by refusing to eat whilst
the balance of her mind was disturbed".
The exact cause of her death remains a subject of debate. Some claim
that her refusal to eat came from her desire to express some form of
solidarity toward the victims of the war. Others think that Weil's
self-starvation occurred after her study of Arthur Schopenhauer. In
his chapters on Christian saintly asceticism and salvation,
Schopenhauer had described self-starvation as a preferred method of
self-denial. However, Simone Pétrement, one of Weil's first and most
significant biographers, regards the coroner's report as simply
mistaken. Basing her opinion on letters written by the personnel of
the sanatorium at which Simone Weil was treated, Pétrement affirms
that Weil asked for food on different occasions while she was
hospitalized and even ate a little bit a few days before her death;
according to her, it is in fact Weil's poor health condition that
eventually made her unable to eat.
Weil's first English biographer, Richard Rees, offers several possible
explanations for her death, citing her compassion for the suffering of
her countrymen in occupied France and her love for and close imitation
of Christ. Rees sums up by saying: "As for her death, whatever
explanation one may give of it will amount in the end to saying that
she died of love."
Mysticism in ''Gravity and Grace''
====================================
While 'Gravity and Grace' () is one of the books most associated with
Simone Weil, the work was not one she wrote to be published 'as a
book'. Rather, the work consists of various passages selected from
Weil's notebooks and arranged topically by Gustave Thibon, who knew
and befriended her. Weil had in fact given to Thibon some of her
notebooks, written before May 1942, but not with any idea or request
to publish them. Hence, the resulting work, in its selections,
organization and editing, is much influenced by Mr. Thibon, a devout
Catholic. (See Thibon's Introduction to 'Gravity and Grace' (Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1952).)
T. S. Eliot's preface to 'The Need for Roots' suggests that Weil might
be regarded as a modern-day Marcionite, due to her virtually wholesale
rejection of the Old Testament and her overall distaste for the
Judaism that was technically hers by birth. Her niece, Sylvie Weil,
and biographer Thomas R. Nevin have sought, on the contrary, to
demonstrate that Weil did not reject Judaism and was heavily
influenced by its precepts.
Absence
=========
Absence is the key image for her metaphysics, cosmology, cosmogony,
and theodicy. She believed that God created by an act of
self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind
of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except
where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in
part. This idea mirrors tzimtzum, a central notion in the Jewish
mystical creation narrative.
This is, for Weil, an original 'kenosis' ("emptiness") preceding the
corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are
thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as
such, but because to be created at all we had to be precisely what God
is not, i.e., we had to be the opposite of what is holy. (See
Apophatic theology.)
This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her theodicy, for if
creation is conceived this way (as necessarily containing evil within
itself), then there is no problem of the entrance of evil into a
perfect world. Nor does this constitute a delimitation of God's
omnipotence, if it is not that God could not create a perfect world,
but that the act which we refer towards by saying "create" in its very
essence implies the impossibility of perfection.
However, this notion of the necessity of evil does not mean that we
are simply, originally, and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil
tells us that "Evil is the form which God's mercy takes in this
world". Weil believed that evil, and its consequence, affliction,
served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God—"The
extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human
misery, it merely reveals it."
Affliction
============
Weil's concept of affliction ('malheur') goes beyond simple suffering,
though it certainly includes it. Only some souls are capable of
experiencing the full depth of affliction; the same souls that are
also most able to experience spiritual joy. Affliction is a sort of
suffering "plus", which transcends both body and mind; such physical
and mental anguish scourges the very soul.
War and oppression were the most intense cases of affliction within
her reach; to experience it, she turned to the life of a factory
worker, while to understand it she turned to Homer's 'Iliad'. (Her
essay "The Iliad or the Poem of Force", first translated by Mary
McCarthy, is a piece of Homeric literary criticism.) Affliction was
associated both with necessity and with chance—it was fraught with
necessity because it was hard-wired into existence itself, and thus
imposed itself upon the sufferer with the full force of the
inescapable, but it was also subject to chance inasmuch as chance,
too, is an inescapable part of the nature of existence. The element of
chance was essential to the unjust character of affliction; in other
words, my affliction should not usually—let alone always—follow from
my sin, as per traditional Christian theodicy, but should be visited
upon me for no special reason.
''Metaxu'': "Every separation is a link"
==========================================
The concept of 'metaxu', which Weil borrowed from Plato, is that which
both separates and connects (e.g., as a wall separates two prisoners
but can be used to tap messages). This idea of connecting distance was
of the first importance for Weil's understanding of the created realm.
The world as a whole, along with any of its components, including our
physical bodies, is to be regarded as serving the same function for us
in relation to God that a blind man's stick serves for him in relation
to the world about him. They do not afford direct insight, but can be
used experimentally to bring the mind into practical contact with
reality. This metaphor allows any absence to be interpreted as a
presence, and is a further component in Weil's theodicy.
Beauty
========
For Weil, "The beautiful is the experiential proof that the
incarnation is possible". The beauty which is inherent in the form of
the world (this inherency is proven, for her, in geometry, and
expressed in all good art) is the proof that the world points to
something beyond itself; it establishes the essentially telic
character of all that exists. Her concept of beauty extends throughout
the universe: "[W]e must have faith that the universe is beautiful on
all levels...and that it has a fullness of beauty in relation to the
bodily and psychic structure of each of the thinking beings that
actually do exist and of all those that are possible. It is this very
agreement of an infinity of perfect beauties that gives a transcendent
character to the beauty of the world...He (Christ) is really present
in the universal beauty. The love of this beauty proceeds from God
dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe".
She also wrote that "The beauty of this world is Christ's tender smile
coming to us through matter".
Beauty also served a soteriological function for Weil: "Beauty
captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to
the soul." It constitutes, then, another way in which the divine
reality behind the world invades our lives. Where affliction conquers
us with brute force, beauty sneaks in and topples the empire of the
self from within.
Attention
===========
As Simone Weil explains in her book 'Waiting for God', attention
consists of suspending or emptying one's thought, such that one is
ready to receive—to be penetrated by—the object to which one turns
one's gaze, be that object one's neighbor, or ultimately, God. As Weil
explains, one can love God by praying to God, and attention is the
very “substance of prayer”: when one prays, one empties oneself, fixes
one's whole gaze towards God, and becomes ready to receive God.
Similarly, for Weil, people can love their neighbors by emptying
themselves, becoming ready to receive their neighbor in all his or her
naked truth, asking their neighbor: “What are you going through?”
Three Forms of the Implicit Love of God
=========================================
In 'Waiting for God', Simone Weil explains that the three forms of
implicit love of God are (1) love of neighbor (2) love of the beauty
of the world and (3) love of religious ceremonies. As Weil writes, by
loving these three objects (neighbor, world’s beauty, and religious
ceremonies), one indirectly loves God before “God comes in person to
take the hand of his future bride,” since prior to God's arrival,
one's soul cannot yet 'directly' love God as the object. Love of
neighbor occurs (i) when the strong treat the weak 'as equals,' (ii)
when people give personal attention to those that otherwise seem
invisible, anonymous, or non-existent, and (iii) when we look at and
listen to the afflicted 'as they are', without explicitly thinking
about God—i.e., Weil writes, when “God in us” loves the afflicted,
'rather' than we loving them in God. Second, Weil explains, love of
the world’s beauty occurs when humans imitate God’s love for the
cosmos: just as God creatively renounced his command over the
world—letting it be ruled by human autonomy and matter’s “blind
necessity”—humans give up their imaginary command over the world,
seeing the world 'no longer' as if they were the world’s center.
Finally, Weil explains, love of religious ceremonies occurs as an
implicit love of God, when religious practices are pure. Weil writes
that purity in religion is seen when “faith and love do not fail,” and
most absolutely, in the Eucharist.
Works
======================================================================
According to Lissa McCullough, Weil would likely have been "intensely
displeased" by the attention paid to her life rather than her works.
She believed it was her writings that embodied the best of her, not
her actions and definitely not her personality. Weil had similar views
about others, saying that if one looks at the lives of great figures
in separation from their works, it "necessarily ends up revealing
their pettiness above all", as it's in their works that they have put
the best of themselves.
Weil's most famous works were published posthumously.
:: In the decades since her death, her writings have been assembled,
annotated, criticized, discussed, disputed, and praised. Along with
some twenty volumes of her works, publishers have issued more than
thirty biographies, including 'Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage' by
Robert Coles, Harvard's Pulitzer-winning professor, who calls Weil 'a
giant of reflection.'
''The Need for Roots''
========================
Weil's book 'The Need for Roots' was written in early 1943,
immediately before her death later that year. She was in London
working for the French Resistance and trying to convince its leader,
Charles de Gaulle, to form a contingent of nurses who would serve at
the front lines.
'The Need for Roots' has an ambitious plan. It sets out to address the
past and to set out a road map for the future of France after World
War II. She painstakingly analyzes the spiritual and ethical milieu
that led to France's defeat by the German army, and then addresses
these issues with the prospect of eventual French victory.
Legacy
======================================================================
During her lifetime, Weil was only known to relatively narrow circles
and even in France her essays were mostly read only by those
interested in radical politics. During the first decade after her
death, Weil rapidly became famous, attracting attention throughout the
West. For the third quarter of the 20th century, she was widely
regarded as the most influential person in the world on new work
concerning religious and spiritual matters. Her philosophical, social
and political thought also became popular, although not to the same
degree as her religious work.
As well as influencing fields of study, Weil deeply affected the
personal lives of numerous individuals. Pope Paul VI said that Weil
was one of his three greatest influences. Weil's popularity began to
decline in the late 1960s and 1970s. However, more of her work was
gradually published, leading to many thousands of new secondary works
by Weil scholars, some of whom focused on achieving a deeper
understanding of her religious, philosophical and political work.
Others broadened the scope of Weil scholarship to investigate her
applicability to fields like classical studies, cultural studies,
education and even technical fields like ergonomics.
Many commentators who have assessed Weil as a person were highly
positive; many described her as a saint, some even as the greatest
saint of the twentieth century, including T. S. Eliot, Dwight
Macdonald, Leslie Fiedler, and Robert Coles. After they met at age 18,
Simone de Beauvoir wroteː "I envied her for having a heart that could
beat right across the world." Weil biographer Gabriella Fiori writes
that Weil was "a moral genius in the orbit of ethics, a genius of
immense revolutionary range." Maurice Schumann said that since her
death there was "hardly a day when the thought of her life did not
positively influence his own and serve as a moral guide."
In 1951, Albert Camus wrote that she was "the only great spirit of
our times." Foolish though she may have appeared at times—dropping a
suitcase full of French resistance papers all over the sidewalk and
scrambling to gather them up—her deep engagement with both the theory
and practice of caritas, in all its myriad forms, functions as the
unifying force of her life and thought. Gustave Thibon, the French
philosopher and close friend, recounts their last meeting, not long
before her death: "I will only say that I had the impression of being
in the presence of an absolutely transparent soul which was ready to
be reabsorbed into original light."
Weil has however been criticised even by those who otherwise deeply
admired her, such as Eliot, for being excessively prone to divide the
world into good and evil, and for her sometimes intemperate judgments.
Weil was a harsh critic of the influence of Judaism on Western
civilisation, and an even harsher critic of the Roman Empire, in which
she refused to see any value at all. On the other hand, according to
Eliot, she held up the Cathars as exemplars of goodness, despite there
being in his view little concrete evidence on which to base such an
assessment. According to Pétrement she idolised Lawrence of Arabia,
considering him to be a Saint. A few critics have taken an overall
negative view. Several Jewish writers, including Susan Sontag, accused
her of antisemitism, although this was far from a universal shared
perspective. A small minority of commentators have judged her to be
psychologically unbalanced or sexually obsessed. General Charles de
Gaulle, her ultimate boss while she worked for the 'French
Resistance', considered her "insane", although even he was influenced
by her and repeated some of her sayings for years after her death.
Portrayal in film and onstage
======================================================================
Weil was the subject of a 2010 documentary by Julia Haslett, 'An
encounter with Simone Weil'. Haslett noted that Weil had become "a
little-known figure, practically forgotten in her native France, and
rarely taught in universities or secondary schools".
Weil's work has however continued to be the subject of ongoing
scholarship, with a metastudy finding that over 2500 new scholarly
works had been published about her between 1995 and 2012. Weil was
also the subject of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's 'La Passion de
Simone' (2008), written with librettist Amin Maalouf. Of the piece,
music critic Olivia Giovetti wrote:
"Framing her soprano soloist as Simone’s imaginary sister (Literal?
Metaphorical? Does it matter?), the narrative arc becomes a struggle
to understand the dichotomy of Simone. Wrapped in this dramatic
mystery, Saariaho’s musical textures, haunting and moribund, create a
meditative state. To go back to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, if that
work, written for his time, serves to reinforce the
(then-revolutionary) system of the Protestant church, then “La Passion
de Simone,” written for our time, questions the mystery of faith to
reinforce the inexplicable experience of being human."
Works in French
=================
* 'Simone Weil, Œuvres complètes.' (Paris: Gallimard, 1989-2006, 6
vols.)
* 'Réflexions sur la guerre' (La Critique sociale, no. 10, November
1933)
* 'Chronicles from the Spanish Civil War', in: 'Le Libertaire', an
anarchistic magazine, 1936
*'La Condition ouvrière', 1937
* 'La Pesanteur et la grâce' (1947)
* 'L'Enracinement' (1949)
* 'Attente de Dieu' (1950)
* 'Lettre à un religieux' (1951)
* 'Les Intuitions pré-chrétiennes' (Paris: Les Editions de la Colombe,
1951)
* 'La Source grecque' (Paris: Gallimard, 1952)
* 'Oppression et liberté' (1955)
* 'Note sur la suppression générale des partis politiques' (Paris:
Editions Gallimard, 1957 - Climats, 2006)
Works in English translation
==============================
* 'Awaiting God: A New Translation of Attente de Dieu and Lettre a un
Religieux.' Introduction by Sylvie Weil. Translation by Bradley
Jersak. Fresh Wind Press, 2012. .
* 'Formative Writings: 1929-1941'. (1987). Dorothy Tuck McFarland
& Wilhelmina Van Ness, eds. University of Massachusetts Press.
* 'The Iliad or the Poem of Force'. Pendle Hill Pamphlet. Mary
McCarthy trans.
* 'Intimations of Christianity Among the Greeks'. Routledge Kegan
Paul, 1957. Elisabeth Chas Geissbuhler trans.
* 'Letter to a Priest'. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1954. Routledge classics
2002, with introduction by Marion von der Ruhr (pbk), (hbk)
* 'The Need for Roots'. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1952. Arthur Wills
trans., preface by T.S. Eliot
* 'Gravity and Grace'. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952. [Routledge
Classics 2002. ]
* '[https://books.google.com/books?id=30YyD5Yf_r4C&pg=PA0 The
Notebooks of Simone Weil]'. Routledge paperback, 1984. [Routledge
2004. ]
* 'On Science, Necessity, & The Love of God'. London: Oxford
University Press, 1968. Richard Rees trans.
* 'Oppression and Liberty'. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1958.
* 'Simone Weil's The Iliad or Poem of Force: A Critical Edition'.
James P. Holoka, ed. & trans. Peter Lang, 2005.
* '[https://books.google.com/books?id=_zDMWcy7rmcC&pg=PA0 Simone
Weil: An Anthology]'. Sian Miles, editor. Virago Press, 1986.
* 'Simone Weil: First and Last Notebooks'. London: Oxford University
Press, 1970. Richard Rees trans.
*
'[https://books.google.com/books?id=XU1ynOX_41AC&printsec=frontcover
Simone Weil: Lectures on Philosophy]'. Cambridge University Press,
1978. Intro. by Peter Winch, trans. by Hugh Price.
* 'The Simone Weil Reader: A Legendary Spiritual Odyssey of Our Time'.
George A. Panichas, editor. David McKay Co., 1981.
* 'Simone Weil—Selected Essays: 1934-1943'. London: Oxford University
Press, 1962. Richard Rees trans.
* 'Simone Weil: Seventy Letters'. London: Oxford University Press,
1965. Richard Rees trans.
* 'Two Moral Essays by Simone Weil—Draft for a Statement of Human
Obligations & Human Personality'. Ronald Hathaway, ed. Pendle Hill
Pamphlet. Richard Rhees trans.
* 'Waiting on God'. Routledge Kegan Paul, 1951. Emma Craufurd trans.
* 'Waiting For God'. Harper Torchbooks, 1973. Emma Craufurd trans.,
with an introduction by Leslie A. Fiedler. .
* Waiting for God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2009 Emma
Craufurd, with an introduction by Leslie A. Fiedler. 978-0-06-171896-0
* '[https://books.google.com/books?id=-CXdJmswenYC&pg=PA0 On the
Abolition of All Political Parties]', Simon Leys trans., Melbourne:
Black Inc., 2013.
Online Journal
================
* [http://attentionsw.org 'Attention'] a bi-monthly online journal
(free) dedicated to exploring the life and legacy of Simone Weil.
Secondary sources
===================
* Allen, Diogenes. (2006) 'Three Outsiders: Pascal, Kierkegaard,
Simone Weil'. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
* Bell, Richard H. (1998) 'Simone Weil'. Rowman & Littlefield.
* ———, editor. (1993) 'Simone Weil's Philosophy of Culture: Readings
Toward a Divine Humanity'. Cambridge University Press.
* Castelli, Alberto, "The Peace Discourse in Europe 1900-1945,
Routledge, 2019.
* Chenavier, Robert. (2012) 'Simone Weil: Attention to the Real',
trans. Bernard E. Doering. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
* Davies, Grahame. (2007) 'Everything Must Change'. Seren.
* Dietz, Mary. (1988). 'Between the Human and the Divine: The
Political Thought of Simone Weil.' Rowman & Littlefield.
* Doering, E. Jane. (2010) 'Simone Weil and the Specter of
Self-Perpetuating Force'. University of Notre Dame Press.
* Doering, E. Jane, and Eric O. Springsted, eds. (2004) 'The Christian
Platonism of Simone Weil'. University of Notre Dame Press.
* Finch, Henry Leroy. (1999) 'Simone Weil and the Intellect of Grace,'
ed. Martin Andic. Continuum International.
* Gabellieri, Emmanuel. (2003) 'Etre et don: L'unite et l'enjeu de la
pensée de Simone Weil'. Paris: Peeters.
* Goldschläger, Alain. (1982) 'Simone Weil et Spinoza: Essai
d'interprétation'. Québec: Naaman.
* Guilherme, Alexandre and Morgan, W. John, 2018, 'Simone Weil
(1909-1943)-dialogue as an instrument of power', Chapter 7 in
'Philosophy, Dialogue, and Education: Nine modern European
philosophers', Routledge, London and New York, pp. 109-126. .
* Irwin, Alexander. (2002) 'Saints of the Impossible: Bataille, Weil,
and the Politics of the Sacred'. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.
*McCullough, Lissa. (2014) 'The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil'.
London: I. B. Tauris.
* Morgan, Vance G. (2005) 'Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science,
Mathematics, and Love'. University of Notre Dame Press.
* Morgan, W. John, 2019, '‘Simone Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy: A
comment’, 'RUDN Journal of Philosophy', 23 (4) 420—429. DOI:
10.22363/2313-2302-2019-23-4-420-429.
* Morgan, W. John, 2020, ‘Simone Weil’s ‘Reflections on the Right Use
of School Studies with a View to the Love of God’: A Comment’, 'RUDN
Journal of Philosophy', 24 (3), 398-409.DOI:
10.22363/2313-2302-2020-24-3-398-409.
* Athanasios Moulakis (1998) 'Simone Weil and the Politics of
Self-Denial,' trans. Ruth Hein. University of Missouri Press.
* Plant, Stephen. (2007) 'Simone Weil: A Brief Introduction', Orbis,
* ———. (2007) 'The SPCK Introduction to Simone Weil', SPCK,
* Radzins, Inese Astra (2006) 'Thinking Nothing: Simone Weil's
Cosmology'. ProQuest/UMI.
* Rhees, Rush. (2000) 'Discussions of Simone Weil'. State University
of New York Press.
* Rozelle-Stone, Rebecca A., and Lucian Stone. (2013) 'Simone Weil and
Theology'. New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark.
* ———, eds. (2009) 'Relevance of the Radical: Simone Weil 100 Years
Later'. New York: T & T Clark.
* Veto, Miklos. (1994) 'The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil',
trans. Joan Dargan. State University of New York Press.
* von der Ruhr, Mario. (2006) 'Simone Weil: An Apprenticeship in
Attention'. London: Continuum.
* Winch, Peter. (1989) 'Simone Weil: "The Just Balance'." Cambridge
University Press.
*Winchell, James. (2000) 'Semantics of the Unspeakable: Six Sentences
by Simone Weil,' in: "Trajectories of Mysticism in Theory and
Literature", Philip Leonard, ed. London: Macmillan, 72-93.
* Zaretsky, Robert. (2020)
[https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/logic-rebel-simone-weil-albert-camus/
"The Logic of the Rebel: On Simone Weil and Albert Camus,"] Los
Angeles Review of Books.
* ———. (2018)
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/opinion/simone-weil-human-rights-obligations.html
"What We Owe to Others: Simone Weil's Radical Reminder,"] New York
Times.
Biographies
=============
* Anderson, David. (1971). 'Simone Weil'. SCM Press.
* Cabaud, Jacques. (1964). 'Simone Weil'. Channel Press.
* Robert Coles (1989) 'Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage'.
Addison-Wesley. 2001 ed., Skylight Paths Publishing.
* Fiori, Gabriella (1989) 'Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography'.
translated by Joseph R. Berrigan. University of Georgia Press.
* ———, (1991)
'[https://books.google.com/books?id=ea1V5DDwiLQC&pg=PA0 Simone
Weil. Una donna assoluta]', La Tartaruga; Saggistica.
* ———, (1993) 'Simone Weil. Une Femme Absolue' Diffuseur-SODIS.
* Gray, Francine Du Plessix (2001) 'Simone Weil'. Viking Press.
* McLellan, David (1990) 'Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of
Simone Weil'. New York: Poseidon Press.
* Nevin, Thomas R. (1991).
'[https://books.google.com/books?id=pbNwXrQPs7kC&pg=PA0 Simone
Weil: Portrait of a Self-Exiled Jew]'. Chapel Hill.
* Perrin, J.B. & Thibon, G. (1953).
'[https://books.google.com/books?id=PHWpSe1ywkEC&pg=PA0 Simone
Weil as We Knew Her]'. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
* Pétrement, Simone (1976) 'Simone Weil: A Life'. New York: Schocken
Books. 1988 edition.
* Rexroth, Kenneth (1957) Simone Weil
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/simone-weil.htm
* Guia Risari (2014) 'Il taccuino di Simone Weil', RueBallu 2014,
Palermo,
* Terry, Megan (1973). 'Approaching Simone: A Play'. The Feminist
Press.
* White, George A., ed. (1981). 'Simone Weil: Interpretations of a
Life'. University of Massachusetts Press.
* Yourgrau, Palle. (2011) 'Simone Weil'. Critical Lives series.
London: Reaktion.
* Weil, Sylvie. (2010) "At home with André and Simone Weil'. Evanston:
Northwestern.
* Simone Weil: A Saint for Our Time? Magazine article by Jillian
Becker; New Criterion, Vol. 20, March 2002.
Audio recordings
==================
* David Cayley, 'Enlightened by Love: The Thought of Simone Weil'. CBC
Audio (2002)
* "In Our Time" documentary on Weil, BBC Radio 4 (2015)
See also
======================================================================
* Edith Stein
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* Simone de Beauvoir
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20091010181204/http://www.siue.edu/artsandsciences/philosophy/weilsociety/colloquy.shtml
American Weil Society and 2009 Colloquy]—Website for 2009 Colloquy at
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070815211545/http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/papers2005/presbey_eng.htm
Simone Weil on Labor] — hosted at the 'Center for Global Justice'
*[http://simoneweil.net/home.htm simoneweil.net] — biographical notes,
photos & bilingual quotes that illustrate key concepts, including
force, necessity, attention and "le malheur"
*Works by Simone Weil — public domain in Canada
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110102225833/http://linestreet.net/filmmakers.html
'An Encounter with Simone Weil'] — Documentary on Weil by Julia
Haslett, premiered in Amsterdam in November 2010
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nthz3 Radio broadcast on Weil as
part of BBC's 'In our Time' series (2012)]
*[http://www.traduccionssimoneweil.cat Simone Weil’s texts] (Catalan
translation)
*Philosophical Investigations,
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14679205/2020/43/1-2 Special
Issue on Simone Weil (1909-1943)], January-April 2020.
License
=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil