Simone Weil and George Herbert on love through poetry

Roberts, H
Date: 18 April 2023
Journal
Forum for Modern Language Studies
Publisher
Oxford University Press / University of St Andrews
Publisher DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqad029
Abstract
In two letters written shortly before she sailed from Marseille in May 1942, Simone Weil reveals the profound impact George Herbert’s ‘Love (III)’ had on her. When reciting the poem to herself during intense headaches, she had a religious experience which involved Christ descending and taking her up. This article offers a comparative ...
In two letters written shortly before she sailed from Marseille in May 1942, Simone Weil reveals the profound impact George Herbert’s ‘Love (III)’ had on her. When reciting the poem to herself during intense headaches, she had a religious experience which involved Christ descending and taking her up. This article offers a comparative case study of focused attention on poetry as a form of prayer leading to a religious experience. It offers a close reading of ‘Love (III)’ through the lens of Weil’s philosophical and spiritual writings from the last year of her life and vice-versa. The beauty of poetry on Weil’s account is analogous to the beauty of the world and hence can approach human expression of God’s will or the ineffable order of the universe.
View full metadata

French

Collections of Former Colleges

Item views 0
Full item downloads 0
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.