Quotation
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“The true hero, the true subject, the centre of the Iliad, is force.”
Simone Weil · Moral philosophy · Modern · 1940
What does it mean?
The true hero and subject of the Iliad, she says, is force: that which turns anyone subjected to it into a thing. The poem's glory is not the point. The point is how force operates on bodies, including the bodies of those who think they wield it. A rival reading hears a pacifist reduction, blind to the poem's beauty and to any distinction between aggressor and defender. She is writing in the fall of France, and she thinks the poem is the only true epic because it does not flatter force.
Did Simone Weil really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Mary McCarthy's English of Weil's essay, written in 1940–41. McCarthy prints 'center'. The card uses British 'centre'. Force is what turns a person into a thing. The hero is not Achilles. The essay is the argument. The sentence is the thesis.
Where it comes from
The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, in Mary McCarthy's translation
Approximate date: 1940.
How to use it
A news report in London describes a bombing as a chess move and the people as the square. The essay is about that conversion of persons into things, including the conversion that happens in the style of the telling. It does not give you a strategy. It gives you a test for whether your sentences have already performed the conversion. The test can be failed by people who think themselves humane, which is part of her point.
A mindset reading
The essay is not Gravity and Grace, and it is not the letter on attention. Force is the public, political Weil. Attention is not absent, but if you only know the generosity sentence you do not know this one. They meet in her refusal to treat persons as material.
Understand the philosophy
L'Iliade ou le poème de la force, 1940–41. Mary McCarthy translated it. The centre is force. The ethical demand, not to become the force one suffers or wields, is the essay's pressure, and it is not a plot summary.
- power
- ethics
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
The true hero and subject of the Iliad, she says, is force: that which turns anyone subjected to it into a thing. The poem's glory is not the point. The point is how force operates on bodies, including the bodies of those who think they wield it. A rival reading hears a pacifist reduction, blind to the poem's beauty and to any distinction between aggressor and defender. She is writing in the fall of France, and she thinks the poem is the only true epic because it does not flatter force.
Did Simone Weil really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Mary McCarthy's English of Weil's essay, written in 1940–41. McCarthy prints 'center'. The card uses British 'centre'. Force is what turns a person into a thing. The hero is not Achilles. The essay is the argument. The sentence is the thesis.
Which work is it in?
The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, in Mary McCarthy's translation Approximate date: 1940.