Allegory

Use in the book

The verse, introduced by Joubert as a line by Lemierre, gives allegory a splendid, light-transmitting habitation. Joubert separately names the charm of allegory and diaphanous, calls inhabit merely right, and assigns palace a beautiful meaning. The distinction prevents every pleasing effect from being credited simply to a correct definition. The following ballet judgment turns the image into a precept: lodging allegory in a hut fails its need for palaces. The analogy conveys a demand for a fitting imaginative setting, but it does not provide a complete rule for decoding every allegorical figure.

Places to read

1. II, p. 849, entry 10, ¶1Joubert attributes the following separate verse line to Lemierre.
2. II, p. 849, entry 10, ¶2The verse houses allegory in a diaphanous palace.
3. II, p. 849, entry 10, ¶3Joubert distinguishes charm, aptness and beautiful meaning within its words.
4. II, p. 849–850, entry 11, ¶1A hut is judged an inadequate habitation for allegory.

Translation in this edition

The English translation keeps the attributed verse as a separate line; its external poem source is not independently authenticated. It preserves the metalinguistic wording in the comment. The opaque G—rd—l and b—ll—ts remain unexpanded; ballets is already supplied parenthetically by the source. The visible positional letters beside the first code do not authorize an invented name.