From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAffectation concerns a strained, displayed or misplaced expression.
- In JoubertA beautiful expression can become affected when detached from its proper position: an architectural capital belongs at the top, not the beginning, of a building.
- In this editionThe English translation uses affectation and to affect, while recherche in the neighboring explanation becomes studied refinement, not research.
- A place to beginDisplacement can make a beautiful expression affected.
- English renderings
- affectation; to affect
Meaning
Affectation concerns a strained, displayed or misplaced expression. Joubert distinguishes it from vanity itself and asks what the expression serves, where it stands and whether it belongs sincerely to its speaker.
Use in the book
A beautiful expression can become affected when detached from its proper position: an architectural capital belongs at the top, not the beginning, of a building. Studied wording also changes value with its underlying matter. Beautiful subjects deserve extreme care; the same care lavished on commonplace thoughts may look affected. Affectation attaches more closely to words than pretension does, and time can efface it. The decisive contrast in another note is between a writer seeking clarity or exactness for the reader and one seeking brilliance for himself. The definition of affecter as displaying what one lacks adds a personal test: identical tones and gestures are not affected in everyone. Sincerity, proportion and placement make the judgment contextual.
Places to read
- I, p. 461, entry 1, ¶1Displacement can make a beautiful expression affected.
- II, p. 531, entry begun p. 530, no. 1, ¶7Studied expression is judged in relation to its matter.
- II, p. 578, entry 4, ¶1Affectation differs from invariably offensive pretension.
- II, p. 578, entry 4, ¶2Care for the reader differs from the wish to shine.
- II, p. 641, entry 9, ¶2A gesture may be sincere in one person and affected in another.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses affectation and to affect, while recherche in the neighboring explanation becomes studied refinement, not research. The conditional or comparative limits remain: affectation does not always displease, and the singer may fail to please. The dating of the exercise-book addition at II.530 is the source editor’s inference, not an authorial date.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 461; II, pp. 531, 578, 641.