Simone Weil, Albert Camus et le “Poverello”

Abstract

The thoughts of the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943) have the particularity of being considered current, decade after decade. 2023 offers us the opportunity to remember her in a special way: her closeness to a contemporary she has never met, the Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus (1913-1960). At first glance, the spiritual concerns of Simone Weil, a Christian outside the Church, and a mystic at heart, seem far removed from those of Albert Camus, a humanist atheist. And yet, it would be a mistake to confine her to an obsolete and idiosyncratic mystique. Proof of their deep intellectual closeness which goes beyond their biographical circumstances, is the journey they each made on their own in 1937 in Italy. There, immersed in the heart of landscapes imbued with a serious spirituality, they lived a similar and strong inner experience. The objective of this article is to shed light on this journey, both earthly and spiritual, which, beyond their opposing religious beliefs, led them to a common vision of the beauty of the world. We will therefore first underline in Weil’s biography the elements that make it possible to establish, from this perspective, the link between her and Camus. Then, we will analyze what the “spirit of poverty” as taught by Saint Francis, il Poverello, means for each of them, Finally, we will examine the conditions of this Italian spiritual experience and its relationship to the beauty of the world.