Mirror of Obedience – The Poems and Selected Prose of Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943) lived a life of extraordinary brilliance and intensity as a mystic, Platonic philosopher and activist. This volume brings together her poetry and autobiographical writings for the first time in English, some of which date back to when she was only 16. The editors contextualise these writings with chapters on poetry and literature, and the texts themselves have French on the left with the English translation on the right. The key themes in her thought are present here: attention, beauty, decreation, affliction, absence, detachment, grace, necessity, and obedience. Crucially, and especially for our time, Weil asserted the existence of an objective realm ‘at once material and metaphysical, which includes meaning, beauty and a moral structure.’ (p. 5) Besides, knowledge and truth should be in the service of the good. The problem with violence is no less central in our time than it was in hers, and is intrinsically linked with revolutionary upheavals. I was interested to read about the decisive influence of George Herbert’s famous poem, Love Bade Me Welcome, which Weil often recited as a prayer. Above all, she fully inhabited life while drawing on an extraordinary range of reading (p. 48). This is a rich addition to Weil scholarship, which also speaks to our human condition.