ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 is about the need for a theodicy which is not only ideally temperate, catholic and patient, but which is, at the same time, also infused with maximum sheer poetic energy. Here therefore, first, the argument turns to the book of Job. Then there follows a discussion of the underlying theodicean rationale informing the work of Nelly Sachs. A direct poetic response to the great trauma of the Shoah, framed by the most austere religious faith, Sachs’s work, as a whole, is, in the English-speaking world, a largely forgotten masterpiece. Yet it is, surely, eminently relevant here. And, finally, the work of Simone Weil is considered: essentially, as another form of exemplary theodicean response to the same historical context; this time, a prose-poetic one. The discussion of Weil, on the other hand, also rounds out the general critique of ‘philosophic impatience’ which runs right through the argument. (Such impatience takes many forms. Besides Nietzsche and Heidegger, other older examples cited include Plotinus, Platonism more generally and classical Gnosticism. Weil, of course, is especially sympathetic to Gnosticism, as mediated through the Cathars.) Whereas the topics of Chapters 1 to 3 overlap, that of Chapter 4 is quite distinct. But, inasmuch as Weil (unlike Sachs) is a philosophically minded writer, consideration of her work does, at least to some extent, allow a certain interlocking of the two arcs involved.
