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

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the foremost French philosophers of the 20th century; a mystic, activist, and writer whose profound work continues to intrigue and inspire today. Mirror of Obedience collects together Weil's poetry and autobiographical writings translated into English for the first time. It offers a rare glimpse into a more personal and introspective Weil than we usually encounter. She was writing and re-working her poems until the end of her life and in a letter from London to her parents, dated 22 January 1943, she expressed the wish for her verses to appear together in print in chronological order, a wish which this volume honours. Weil was a thinker who wrote with discipline and spareness and cherished the poetic form for its power to compress language and distill meaning. In these poems and literary writings, we see her own efforts to craft poems as essential expressions of thought, bringing into view another aspect of Weil’s quest for beauty and truth.

Table of Contents:
Translators’ Biographies Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Simone Weil as Poet Chapter 2: Simone Weil and Literature List of Abbreviations Further Reading Poems À une jeune fille riche / To a Rich Girl Vers lus au Goûter de la Saint Charlemagne / Verses Read at the Feast of Saint Charlemagne Éclair / Lightning Promethée / Prometheus À un jour / To a Day La mer / The Sea Nécessité / Necessity Les astres / The Stars La porte / The Gate Four Excerpts from Venice Saved Jaffier 1-3 Violetta Selected Prose Conte: Les Lutins du feu / Tale: The Fairies of the Fire Le conte des six cygnes dans Grimm / The Tale of the Six Swans in Grimm On the Translation Translators’ Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Simone Weil was a philosopher, a mystic, and an activist. Silvia Caprioglio Panizza is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, and is a member of PEriTiA, Centre for Ethics in Public Life, University College Dublin, Ireland. With Philip Wilson, she translated and edited Simone Weil’s verse tragedy Venice Saved (Bloomsbury, 2019). Philip Wilson teaches philosophy of religion, philosophy of literature and translation studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. With Silvia Caprioglio Panizza, he translated and edited Simone Weil’s verse tragedy Venice Saved (Bloomsbury, 2019).

Review :
This book is an excellent contribution to the poetry and translation of Simone Weil. The authors introduce us to her as a poet or writer, but also as a philosopher and translator.