Simona Giurgea performing Simone Weil’s essay “The Iliad or the Poem of Force”

Simona Giurgea, Senior Lecturer of English in the University Theater, Colgate University, performing Simone Weil’s essay “The Iliad or the Poem of Force” translated by Mary McCarthy.

“For those dreamers who consider that force, thanks to progress, would soon be a thing of the past, the Iliad might appear as an historical document; for others, whose powers of recognition are more acute and who perceive force, today as yesterday, at the very center of human history, the Iliad is the purest and the loveliest of mirrors."
Simone Weil, "The Iliad or the Poem of Force," December 1940

Born in Paris, in February 1909 into an agnostic French Jewish family, Simone Weil died of cardiac failure in August 1943.

Most of her work has been published posthumously. “Gravity and Grace," “The Need for Roots," “Oppression and Liberty," “Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks," “Waiting on God," “Science, Necessity and the Love of God," “Lectures on Philosophy," and the volumes of “Notebooks” are among her widely known titles.

Subscribe to our channel for more videos from Colgate University.

Colgate University (http://colgate.edu) is a highly selective residential liberal arts institution distinguished by academic excellence, interdisciplinary inquiry, and increasing student digital IQ. Colgate is located on a beautiful 575 acre campus in upstate New York, and takes pride in the active engagement of its students and faculty in local, national, and global communities.