Rachel Bespaloff, strength and beauty, war and peace. A reading of the Iliad

Abstract

Many biographical data, and a parallel path towards an exile with no return, invite us to compare the readings of the Iliad by Rachel Bespaloff (1895 - 1949) and Simone Weil (1909 - 1943), two intellectuals, Jews, passionate readers of philosophy and scholars of ancient culture, two non-academic writers and thinkers engaged in the problems of the time, lucid observers of the political crises and conflicts of the 1930s.