Rachel Bespaloff's Wartime Essay on the Iliad Reissued in Italian

Rachel Bespaloff's essay De l'Iliade, written in French during her American exile, was first published in 1943 in a luxury edition of only 25 copies on papier corsican, with a preface by her friend and mentor Jean Wahl. That same year, Simone Weil's L'Iliade ou le poème de la force appeared in the journal Cahiers du Sud. Both women, of Jewish origin and writing in French, are now called the 'Homerids' for their parallel engagements with Homer's epic. The Italian edition of Weil's essay is edited by Alessandro di Grazia and published by Asterios. The Iliad, the first poem of the West, returns to relevance in every time of war, as these two essays from the Second World War demonstrate. Bespaloff and Weil confronted the Homeric poem without knowing of each other's work. Bespaloff lived from 1895 to 1949; Weil from 1909 to 1943. The article by Marino Freschi and Anita Romanello, dated 03/10/2026, underscores the enduring force of Hector and Achilles in a world once again marked by conflict.