In 1968 -twenty-five years after her death-, a collection of Simone Weil's poems was released, revealing a little-known facet of the author for many of her followers in prose. Although these poems were not unpublished, as they were scattered in her notebooks, the compilation presented by the French publisher Gallimard in its collection Espoir highlighted this other dimension of his work. To see them collected in one volume -followed by an unfinished play in the style of classical tragedies- showed that Weil also cultivated this literary genre. Not only did she exercise it, but, according to the cross-correspondence published in 1982 between the experimental poet Joë Bousquet and her, constituted something preeminent.
However, the lyrical prose that characterized her literary production ended up overshadowing her scarce poetic output. Precisely, in a letter to Bousquet, Weil stated that she preferred to be considered a poet rather than a philosopher, a desire that, despite her forays into poetry, never fully materialized. This contrast between her aspirations and her literary reality reflects the complexity of her relationship with artistic activity and the search for a creative identity.
In 1937 -he was then twenty-eight years old- dates the letter to the poet Paul Valéry in which he responds to his extensive poem of youth Prometheuswhich she sent him for evaluation. Valéry, after praising the structural skill of the text, analyzed it thoroughly, pointing out some objections. However, he concluded his reply by emphasizing the firmness, fullness and dynamism of the poem: "Many of his verses are really fortunate. Anyway, and this is the essential, there is in this Prometheus a desire to compose, to which I attach the greatest importance, given the rarity of such care in poetry.".
His poems
The five known poems of her youth - the oldest of 1920, that is, when Simone Weil was only eleven years old - anticipate concerns that, later on, will be fundamental in her essayistic work. The last five, written almost at the end of her life (1941 and 1942), reflect the evolution of her thought, which has been the object of profound analysis and presents her as a woman with evident mystical, Christian, evangelizing roots, in the fullest sense of those words, besides being firmly committed to pacifism. Taken together, they all show an inner world grounded in a series of ideas for which she is fully recognized.
The concept of "misfortune"
Among these ideas, the most unique is that of misfortune (malheurThe theme of love, as she calls it, becomes a central component both in her exemplary life and in her philosophical discourse, sharing the limelight with the theme of love. Precisely in To a wealthy young womanIn the first text of his very short published lyric work, the notion of misfortune is presented in a direct way.
After beginning with the description of Climena's character, reflecting the cliché of the tempus fugit and the inevitable physical and social decadence, Weil raises the disconnection of the latter with the reality of the less fortunate, marked by misery and suffering: "...the reality of the less fortunate, marked by misery and suffering...".For you misfortunes are fables, / Quiet and far from the fate of your wretched sisters, / You do not even grant them the favor of a glance.". And the fact is that, as soon as one looks at the poem, one notices that it can only be by Simone Weil, who from her early adolescence showed a deep sensitivity to the denunciation of injustice and the defense of the weakest.
The forceful statements that run through his life, such as ".the misfortune of others entered my flesh"together with the aphorisms on the same subject, collected in the essay Gravity and graceare already glimpsed not only in this composition, but also in some sequences of other lyrical texts, such as the aforementioned Prometheuswhich concludes with this "meat abandoned to misfortune". In each concrete example, the French author expresses her disagreement with a reality that she considers unacceptable: "Bread is sometimes lacking to the citizen; / The people, weary of political struggles, Already chafes and trembles and begins to roar. / (...) What then can they dream, in the midst of so many miseries, / These triumphant youths".
His last poems
Of his last poems, I would like to highlight the following in particular The sea. However, I could cite NeedThe author also makes a series of reflections on this subject, or any of the others. In all cases, the regular reader of her writings will recognize specific contents of this author's philosophy. In the example taken, the sea is a moving image of beauty, a mirror in which the spirit imprints movement and form: "Scattered sea, of waves forever chained, / Mass to heaven offered, mirror of obedience."where beauty is also a faithful reflection of God's presence in the world: "Beauty is a reflection of God's presence in the world.The reflections of the evening will suddenly shine / The wing suspended between the sky and the water. / The oscillating waves are fixed on the plain, / Where each drop in turn ascends and descends, / To remain below by the sovereign law."a flash that, at the same time, is a door to the real, that is, to that which is free from projection - as he also expresses in Gravity and grace- of "the void-filling imagination". Thus, as the soul empties itself of created things, it opens itself to the possibility of merging with the real and of being pierced by the light of grace.
Like the aforementioned text, the others give reason both for his philosophy of water and eternity and for the passage of time -two of his great philosophical motivations-, represented in the stars, which lead humanity towards an unknown future, whose human resistance is expressed in cries and screams.
Its poetics
She rightly longed to be recognized first and foremost as a poet. In fact, she was fully so, although her few poetic texts did not achieve the recognition she would have wished for. On the whole, her poems add nothing new to her papers, notebooks, correspondence and writings of a historical or political nature. Moreover, if he had only composed the poems that are known, he would have fallen into oblivion like so many other authors. His true greatness lies in his prose, which constitutes his highest and most intense poetry.
The lyrical tension to which each of her thoughts is subjected, the dazzling development of the content of her reasoning, her enormous expressiveness, the richness of her images and metaphors, and even the very rhythm of her prose sequences are the features that distinguish her and make her an exquisite poet. It is there where she experiences what she conceives as Poetry: "impossible pain and joy (...). A joy that, by dint of being pure and unmixed, hurts. A pain that, by dint of being pure and unmixed, soothes.". And that is her prose: an experience of irreconcilable contrasts; a door that allows her a direct contact with reality, constituting a palpable manifestation of the beauty of the world. Or as she expresses it: "The poet produces the beautiful with attention fixed on the real. Just as an act of love". This is how she should be read, as a revealer of the beautiful, whatever she writes. Her poems proclaim it; her poems, but, above all, it is her prose that achieves it.
