Simone Weil’s Iliad: The Power of Words

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

2010

Author

Hammer, Dean
Kicey, Michael

Journal

The Review of Politics

Volume

72

Number

1

Pages

79-96

Language

English

Keywords

affliction (malheur)
attention
force
Iliad
justice
language
politics
power

Annotation

The authors read Weil’s “Iliad: The Poem of Force”, through the lens of her essay “The Power of Words”. In so doing they say their essay “seeks to bridge the metaphysical and spiritual world of Simone Weil with the Homeric world, suggesting that Weil provides us with a way of reading the Iliad by way of one of the central paradoxes that organizes her work: the power of words” (p. 81). They begin with a discussion of Weil’s dissertation “Science et perception dans Descartes” and her Lectures on Philosophy, paying particular attention to her concepts of reading, power, and necessity. They then turn back to her writing on the Iliad in light of their discussion, offering a fairly in-depth exposition including consideration of many other issues of central concern in her work such as attention, affliction, and justice arguing for the relevance of Weil’s work for contemporary political theory.

url

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231790363_Simone_Weil's_Iliad_The_Power_of_Words