SIMONE WEIL'S POEM OF FORCE AND THE MEANING OF COURAGE [2020] (original) (raw)
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Simone Weil's Iliad: The Power of Words
The Review of Politics, 2010
Simone Weil’s work has always been appreciated for its evocative beauty, but not always for its potential contributions to political thought. In this essay, we engage in a reappraisal of her political thought, and of her relevance to contemporary politics, by way of her discussion of the power of words. Weil shares much with contemporary approaches that view the world as a text to be interpreted. But for Weil, the power of interpretation carries with it an illusion, exemplified in Weil’s example of Achilles watching over his war-work, in which the world can be seen, measured, and shaped according to one’s will. For Weil, the illusion of control that accompanies this perspective is undermined by our encounter with a world of physical causes and sensations that impact us, quite without us being able to control them.
Simone Weil: The Iliad, or The Poem of Force Study Guide
2011
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Homer's Iliad and the Problem of Force
Oxford University Press , 2023
The topic of force has long remained a problem of interpretation for readers of Homer's Iliad, ever since Simone Weil famously proclaimed it as the poem's main subject. This book seeks to address that problem through a full-scale treatment of the language of force in the Iliad from both philological and philosophical perspectives. Each chapter explores the different types of Iliadic force in combination with the reception of the Iliad in the French intellectual tradition. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that the different terms for force in the Iliad give expression to distinct relations between self and "other." At the same time, this book reveals how the Iliad as a whole undermines the very relations of force which characters within the poem seek to establish. Ultimately, this study of force in the Iliad offers an occasion to reconsider human subjectivity in Homeric poetry.
The Elements of 'Virtue‘ in The Iliad
International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, 2019
The Iliad is an epic poem of Homer narrates The War of Troy between Trojans and Achaeans which takes place in ancient history and it is full of heroic stories. The Trojan War is caused by the betrayal of Helen and Paris and the war is concluded with the death of Hector and the collapse of Troy. In Homeric society, wars and being a great warrior occupy a significant place in their lives since great warriors are believed as virtuous existences. That's why, Homer tells the great stories of great warriors. Alongside heroic stories, Homer also indicates a path to be virtuous through Achilles' rage, dishonesty of Helen and voluptuous behaviours of Paris. He underlines these elevated elements and gives lessons from each of them to his society to praise 'virtue'. However, it oversteps its time and place and it is able to survive until the modern world thanks to its moral messages which are still valid. In this paper, Homer's lessons through these elevated elements related to 'virtue' are going to be studied and depicted with exemplifications from the poem.
Expressing the Inexpressible: Conceptions of Pain in Isaac Rosenberg’s War Poetry and Homer’s Iliad
2019
This paper explores conceptions of pain in Homer’s Iliad and Isaac Rosenberg’s war poetry. In analysing the modern poet’s reception, who fought World War I between 1915 and 1918, of the ancient epic, it illuminates both texts in new lights. Aware of the impossibility to communicate pain exactly this study revolves around such complexity, moments that nevertheless achieve to express the inexpressible. Stressing the reader’s and the narrator’s positioning, the paper draws out questions on textual silence, notions of distance, on moments that stand out through their uncertainty, incoherence even. Hereby, a noteworthy instant unravels in the close relationship between pain and beauty. As pain resists the suddenness of descriptions, the exploration reflects further on pain in the context of kleos : does the strife for immortal fame eliminate the possibility of pain? Or do painful struggles condition the process of becoming the undying hero?
THE POLITICS OF RAGE, COURAGE AND STRIFE IN HOMER’S ILIAD.
My MA Thesis charts Homer’s Iliad as a song of thumoresistance. I mean the very intersection of thumos and stasis. Thumos means heart, spirit, rage, bravery and is understood to be the courageous part of the Ancient Greek psyche. Stasis implies civil strife—a radical rupture with the organization of political power—an event which needs to occur for structural changes to manifest. Stasis, as contestation and conflict is politics as such. I have deeper interests in producing a strong, albeit polemic, argument that affirms and extenuates Ancient forms of rage, dissent and courageous action. It is in the points of resonance between Menis, Thumos and Stasis, that I locate brave, courageous and enraged modes that engage and produce political crises. I am examining liberatory, revolutionary acts of thumotic resistance/stasis (individual/heroic and collective rage), as essential parts of Ancient Greek life. Affirming menis, thumos and stasis, as I feel the need to do, will strengthen critique Plato for being anti-democratic, anti-collective decision-making, against the capacity for courageous and spited action, and against political rage and politics as such. The object of my analysis is Homer’s Iliad, the tradition of militant rage that persists in the Bronze Age that was carried though in song well throughout 4th Century Democratic Athens. Over the course of this paper I will come to see Achilles not only as a flat warrior-model, but as a thumo-resisting hero who creates a legitimate and ethical stasis against the rule of the tyrant Agamemnon, and also a parrhesiastes. In addressing the dense network of themes I just described, I will be making close readings of the Ancient Greeks, including Homer, Solon, Plato, Aristotle and their interpreters: Peter Sloterdijk, Kostas Kalimtzis, Gregory Nagy, Michel Foucault, Leonard Muellner, DL Cairns and Glen Most.
European Literature 1 Fate and Free Will in Homer's The Iliad Homer's The Iliad is one of the most intriguing classical epic Greek poems known today. The Iliad was an oral tradition for four hundred years before finally being written down around seven hundred B.C. The poem is a beautifully written balancing act between two cultures, clashing in a time of unease between traditions of honor and Polis, (Troy) and the traditions of war, marriage, and fame, (Achaeans). The Bronze Age poem is also one of the best known tales of humanity, with its plot combining two aspects of ancient Greek society, actions of the Gods, (fate) and the actions of men, (choice). The Iliad is one of the most important pieces of historical literature for it's explanation of fate versus free will in human beliefs. The Iliad is often interpreted by many scholars as a representation of the spoils and shortcomings of ancient war, and by others as a criticism of war and humanity itself. Although the tale only covers the final weeks of a ten year war, those final moments convey the actions and consequences of human error in agonizing detail. The story is told in books, a written collection of a once ancient oral tradition, and has been passed down by word of mouth through generations of rhapsodes. Because of this tradition, The Iliad is undoubtedly important to ancient Greek history. No other texts in the Western world of literature convey so central a concept of
2017
Menos, the strength of a hero in battle, is a distinguishing characteristic of Homeric heroes. In the Iliad, the poet uses similes to emphasize the strength, youth, and beauty of the characters. These attributes were highly valued in Greek culture, and the inclusion of these qualities in the persona of Homeric heroes further binds the traits of strength, youth, and beauty to greatness, acclaim, and the immortal legacy of heroism.
The Diomedeia brings to the fore the distinction between god and man in a paradoxical manner: by repeatedly blurring the lines between the mortal and divine realms. The mortal hero Diomedes goes on a killing rampage, attacking the gods on three occasions and painfully wounding two of them. How might we explain the presence of an episode whose focus appears to be the intensity, strangeness, and singular nature of the gods’ bodily presence and experience of vulnerability, and what should we make of the exceptional mortal prowess Diomedes is granted here, in the face of divine opponents? What follows is an attempt to revisit some of the function(s) fulfilled by the depiction of divine pain at the hands of an unusually empowered mortal, paying close attention to the themes that these scenes foreground, and to the phraseology that is used to do so.