From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordFable can mean an invented tale, a poetic story or plot, or a fiction improperly presented as physical knowledge.
- In JoubertThe note about episodes uses fable for a narrative fabric strengthened through interweaving.
- In this editionThe English translation uses story in the episode passage and preserves fables in the generic contrasts.
- A place to beginInterwoven stories strengthen the poet’s fabric and apparent reality.
- English renderings
- fable; story
Meaning
Fable can mean an invented tale, a poetic story or plot, or a fiction improperly presented as physical knowledge.
Use in the book
The note about episodes uses fable for a narrative fabric strengthened through interweaving. A second story can give the first more apparent existence and duration; it need not be a short moral fable. The song maxim makes fables the object of singing, in contrast with history recounted. But fables in physical sciences are condemned as encouraging gullibility and presumption. The difference lies partly in the kind of claim and the field in which it circulates, not merely in whether the narrative was invented.
Places to read
- II, p. 524, entry 5, ¶1Interwoven stories strengthen the poet’s fabric and apparent reality.
- II, p. 843, entry 3, ¶1Fables belong to song in contrast with narrated history.
- I, p. 197, entry 1, ¶2Fables offered in physical sciences are faulted as misleading.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses story in the episode passage and preserves fables in the generic contrasts. The supplied [They] on II.524 supplies an English subject after the printed period; it does not add a new story or identify a literary example.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 197; II, pp. 524, 843.