Simone Weil: Utopian PessimistSimone Weil's short life was as extraordinary as her writings. Born in 1909, she was a brilliant philosophy student in the Paris of the 1920s and colleague of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. She fought on the anarchist side in the Spanish Civil War and died, at the age of only thirty-four, while serving with de Gaulle and the Free French in London. This life of intense activity was united with a profoundly religious outlook on life. Many consider her the best spiritual writer of our century and a true saint for modern times. Simone Weil published almost nothing during her lifetime. The publication of her complete works is only now beginning in France. They reveal a mind of amazing lucidity and depth. This biography draws on hitherto unpublished material to explain her thought in the context of her life. Its comprehensive coverage at last makes available to the public the most intriguing personality of our age. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Student Days | 11 |
Teacher and Anarchist | 38 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
affliction Alain Alsthom André André Weil attitude baccalauréat beauty Cahiers Simone Catharism Catholic Christ Christianity Church civilisation Communist conception contemporary Descartes doctrine Ecole Normale Ecole Normale Supérieure essay evil factory Fascism feeling felt force France friends Germany Greek human ibid idea Iliad impersonal individual intellectual labour Languedoc later Le Puy letter London Lycée Marseilles Marx Marx's Marxism mathematics Maurice Schumann mind moral mystical nature necessity Need for Roots never Notebooks Oppression and Liberty organisation parents party Perrin person Pétrement philosophy Plato political possible production pupils religion religious revolution Révolution Prolétarienne revolutionary Roanne Saint-Etienne Schumann Simone Weil Simone Weil Paris Simone Weil's social society soul Soviet Soviet Union spirit suffering teacher Thévenon Thibon things thought trade union tradition truth Weil's words workers writings wrote