Despite living about 300 years before her, George Herbert drastically influenced the life of Simone Weil, a Jewish philosopher of the early to mid-20th century. Weil, accustomed to terrible migraines, was reading one of Herbert’s poems when she had an experience that changed her life.
Who Was Simone Weil?
Born in Paris in 1909, Simone Weil received an education to foster her innate perspicacity. Studying at Lycée Henri IV, one of France’s most prestigious high schools, she discovered a passion for social activism. She was even one of the first women to graduate from the college École Normale Supérieure, a rigorous and respected program.
But she was not just smart — she was also deeply compassionate in a way that inspired true action. As a young girl, she had heard about the rations given to World War I soldiers and told her parents she wanted to give up sugar. Similarly, she once got news about an earthquake in China and wept over the destruction. This prompted fellow philosopher Simone de Beauvoir to comment that Simone Weil had a “heart that beat across the world” (American Weil Society).
This compassion and passion for doing what she believed in, shaped her philosophy in powerful ways. She joined the proletariat (or laboring-class) forces in the Spanish Civil War, spent time in Harlem, New York, and worked in a factory along with oppressed laborers. She truly acted on what she believed, a fact that gained her much respect and attention.
She also suffered from severe migraines for most of her life. Because Simone Weil took on the pains of others and suffered for much of her life, she died relatively young at age 34, partially from self-induced starvation.
Simone Weil’s Philosophy
Most known for her content on the importance of attention in human relationships, divine relationships, and good scholarly practice, Simone Weil cared about force, labor, and solidarity with suffering people. Furthermore, absurdist French writer Albert Camus called Weil “the only great mind of our time” in his preface to one of her works. His comment is even more significant because she lived concurrently with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and himself.
Her works have been described as mystical, since at times they feel dense and contradictory. For instance, writing about a condition of ongoing suffering, she says that:
“When the thought or mind is constrained by the violation of physical pain, even if this pain is mild, to accept the presence of malheur [an extreme state of suffering both physical and spiritual], it produces a state of being as disturbing as if a prisoner were forced to watch for several hours the guillotine that will cut his neck. There are some humans who could live twenty, fifty years in this state of being. We pass by these people without perceiving them” (Waiting for God).
This excerpt showcases the occasionally intense, yet ultimately attentive and compassionate voice of Weil.
Who Was George Herbert?
Born in Wales in 1593, George Herbert was an Anglican scholar, parson, and poet. His mother supported the famous poet John Donne, who even dedicated his collection of poetry Holy Sonnets to her. Becoming one of the devotional poets, Herbert studied at Cambridge. Extremely devoted, he wanted to give God any glory that his publications garnered. Friends with thinker Francis Bacon, he struggled to decide what career to pursue and eventually became a parson.
His work is “characterized by a deep religious devotion, linguistic precision, metrical agility, and ingenious use of conceit” (Poets.org, George Herbert). Unfortunately, he also struggled with poor health for most of his life. He died at the age of 39, but his poetry lives on.
The Pivotal Poem For Weil: Love III
Simone Weil intensely admired George Herbert’s work and his commitment to religious devotion. She considered Love III by Herbert to be a perfect poem, “in which we are to imagine Christ as addressing us at the table of his sacrifice” (Allen, 1985).
Love (III)
By George Herbert
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Love III tells the story of a person coming to a banquet table. At first, the lines “Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin” invoke religious shame, as well as the apparent caution of the speaker. Yet as the poem progresses, the tone shifts to sound comforting. It demonstrates hospitality. The speaker longs to be a worthy guest, yet considers himself not to be so until Love declares that he “shall be he.” This bestows the desired worthiness to the speaker in a way that accepts him, quite unlike the absence of God described by Weil throughout her philosophy of suffering.
After a bit of resistance, the poem ends with the speaker, welcomed by Love, invited to “sit and eat,” denoting physical comfort. Herbert restores the reader after the hurt and ache of the world to the welcoming, soul-soothing Love of Christ.
Migraine Reading and Conversion
Throughout her life, Simone Weil suffered from intense migraines. She would often read to distract herself and to think about something else. One day, when she was experiencing a particularly bad one, she was reading Love III. The scholar Diogenes Allen argues that Love III allowed Weil to come to a Christian understanding that transcended the intellectual and to come to the deeper love of God (Allen 1985). He writes that “Herbert’s poem ‘Love’ is an intersection of beauty and suffering. It was while reciting it in wretched pain that Weil was visited by a supernatural good. That presence won her love” (Allen 1985).
Having memorized and recited Love III, Weil let the words of the poem comfort her as she recited it during migraines, writing once that:
“…at the culminating point of a violent headache, I make myself say George Herbert’s poem “Love” over, concentrating all my attention upon it and clinging with all my soul to the tenderness it enshrines. I used to think I was merely reciting it as a beautiful poem, but without my knowing it the recitation had the virtue of a prayer. It was during one of these recitations that, as I told you, Christ himself came down and took possession of me” (Simone Weil, Allen).
In her Spiritual Autobiography, she wrote that “[t]his experience enabled me by analogy to get a better understanding of the possibility of loving divine love in the midst of affliction” (Weil, around 1940). Although dramatic, it is clear that Weil attributes her conversion to the Christian faith to Herbert’s poem.
Further Influence and Implications
Once Simone Weil became a Christian, her writings and philosophy followed suit. Although she never chose to receive baptism, she wrestled with spiritual topics for the rest of her life. She also distrusted the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, even though she was compelled by their older teachings of asceticism.
She ultimately influenced other philosophers such as George Bataille, Emmanuel Levinas, and Giorgio Agamben. Authors and writers such as T. S. Eliot and Flannery O’Connor were inspired by her as well. Although she is not universally well-known, Simone Weil is a remarkable example of what a person can do. An engaging inspiration, she acted out what she preached, and showed what is possible if people truly do and believe what they say they believe.
Bibliography
Allen, Diogenes. “George Herbert and Simone Weil.” Religion & Literature, vol. 17, no. 2, 1985,
pp. 17–34. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40059276.
—.“Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography.” The Christian Century, vol. 107, no.
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Slomski, Genevieve. “Simone Weil.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia,
2013.EBSCOhostezproxy.uu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&b=ers&AN=88802193&site=eds-live.
Springsted, Eric O, “An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Simone Weil,” http://american
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Univeristé du Québec à Chicoutimi. http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/weil_simone/
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—.“L’amour de Dieu et le malheur.” (French). Les Classiques des sciences sociales. Univeristé
du Québec à Chicoutimi. http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/weil_simone/attente_
de_dieu/attente_de_dieu_1966.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2018.
—.“The Love of God and Affliction.” Waiting for God. (English). Translated by Emma
Craufurd. Perennial Classics. 2000.
