Emploi de la critique génétique sur les variantes du poème A un jour de Simone Weil

Abstract

The mystical philosopher Simone Weil is lesser known as a poet. Her few poems express her mystic experience; her longest poem, A un jour (To the sun) has an interesting genesis. It happens rarely in genetic research that we possess all the textual variants. This allows the author of the present paper to prepare the pre-text of the poem and to draw the resultant conclusions. In the process of analyzing the poem, we can observe some elements of the functioning of the verse technique influenced by Paul Valéry, the organizing role of rhyme and sounds, which have metaphysical bearing. The force that controls the imagination as a result of the fixed form is part of the transcendent technique. The biographical importance of the genetic analysis of Weil's poems lies in the fact that the mystical experience leads to determining form. This means the abandonment of philosophical discourse, poesy becomes the only possibility of expression.