Charm and pleasure

Use in the book

Joubert links charm to mobility when a pleasing fleeting feature becomes hideous if fixed. The object remains unspecified: this is not exclusively a rule about faces. His criticism of Voltaire then separates charm and dazzling admiration from the savoring of taste. Yet charm is not merely a lesser deceptive effect: it can justify departing from simplicity when simplicity alone would not be beautiful. The unfinished prompts about the charm of words imagine enchanted edifices without resolving how their enchantment works. An account of a finished work distinguishes satisfaction in completion from admiration directed toward its maker, permitting traces of art to add charm.

Places to read

1. I, p. 373, entry 6, ¶1Movement can be essential to charm.
2. II, p. 649, entry 2, ¶2Charm, admiration and savoring are separated in the Voltaire judgment.
3. II, p. 627, entry 6, ¶1Necessary charm can license a departure from simplicity.
4. II, p. 486, entry 14, ¶1The charm of words becomes a question about enchanted construction.
5. II, p. 697–698, entry 7, ¶2Admiration concerns the maker, while completion gives satisfaction.

Translation in this edition

The English translation generally uses charm for both nouns in these witnesses, while feature keeps trait’s object open. Admiration is a subsidiary distinction here: it does not mean the same response as taste or satisfaction. The lexicon does not turn the enchanted-edifice prompts into a finished explanation.

Admiration

French: admiration; admirer.

Admiration is not automatically the savoring of taste: in the Voltaire criticism it accompanies dazzling movement. Elsewhere the idea of a work’s maker causes admiration while completion of the work causes satisfaction. It can also be attention’s chosen stopping point, giving pleasure and repose. These local contrasts preserve its intellectual and receptive uses without equating every instance with approval.

Places to read: II, p. 649, entry 2, ¶2; II, p. 697–698, entry 7, ¶2; I, p. 287, entry 2, ¶1.

I know not what

French: je ne scais quoi; je ne sais quoi.

The repeated je ne scais quoi, also printed je ne sais quoi, is rendered literally as the I know not what. Joubert identifies it with charm and relates it to the marvelous: art and the hand are hidden, symmetry and forms are felt without being distinctly perceived, and nature and chance seem to contribute more than will. The seems and comparative more matter. Anything too pronounced loses this quality; the next paragraph opposes it to the too correct. This is an account of effects and their partial concealment, not permission to replace close description with vagueness.

Places to read: II, p. 878, entry 5, ¶1; II, p. 878, entry 5, ¶2.