From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Fancy
phantaisie
Phantaisie can name fabricated images, their receptive field or an unstable private inclination.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPhantaisie can name fabricated images, their receptive field or an unstable private inclination.
- In JoubertIn the combination comparison, people lacking imagination manufacture fantasies as people born blind construct representations by conjecture.
- In this editionThe English translation deliberately has fantasies, fancy and phantasy in these different contexts.
- A place to beginCombination constructs fantasies in the absence of imagination.
- English renderings
- fancy; fantasies; phantasy
Meaning
Phantaisie can name fabricated images, their receptive field or an unstable private inclination. Joubert’s explicit distinction from imagination must be kept local rather than imposed on every occurrence.
Use in the book
In the combination comparison, people lacking imagination manufacture fantasies as people born blind construct representations by conjecture. The analogy ranks these farther from truth; it is Joubert’s account, not a modern assessment of blindness. A different note names imagination the worker and fancy the place or canvas that receives its products, distinguishing active faculty from mere capacity. The panorama fragment also makes phantasy a place formed when the soul wishes to think. The late queen-of-the-world image shifts toward caprice: each person makes a rule and changes it continually. Receptive imagery and arbitrary inclination are related by the word, but they are not identical claims.
Places to read
- I, p. 185, entry 6, ¶1Combination constructs fantasies in the absence of imagination.
- I, p. 281, entry 11, ¶1Fancy is a receptive canvas beside imagination’s activity.
- II, p. 694, entry 8, ¶1Phantasy names the place of an inward panorama.
- II, p. 837, entry 11, ¶1Fancy becomes a queen of perpetually changing private rules.
Translation in this edition
The English translation deliberately has fantasies, fancy and phantasy in these different contexts. None identifies a modern literary genre. The eighty-year interval is retained without computing an unprinted starting date, and the panorama’s impersonal formation is not replaced by a fully specified psychological mechanism.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 185, 281; II, pp. 694, 837.
From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Fancy
fancy; imaginative invention; poetic elaboration
Fancy names the inventive imagination, especially when it gives freedom and ornament to language.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordFancy names the inventive imagination, especially when it gives freedom and ornament to language.
- In TraherneTraherne uses the word while judging Pico’s account of human changeability.
- In this editionThe occurrence is part of Traherne’s commentary on an explicitly attributed passage.
- A place to beginPico’s wandering fancy is admitted, but the transformation story is interpreted through inward qualities rather than bodily shape.
Meaning
Fancy names the inventive imagination, especially when it gives freedom and ornament to language. It can wander beyond literal statement without necessarily becoming worthless.
Use in the book
Traherne uses the word while judging Pico’s account of human changeability. He acknowledges the luxuriance of the poetic presentation, then distinguishes its serious inward meaning from an impossible bodily transformation. Becoming plant, beast, or angel refers to the governing condition of the soul. The passage offers a compact rule for reading elevated figures: identify what the language performs before demanding literal assent to every image.
Places to read
- IV.78Pico’s wandering fancy is admitted, but the transformation story is interpreted through inward qualities rather than bodily shape.
In this edition
The occurrence is part of Traherne’s commentary on an explicitly attributed passage. Do not quote Pico’s whole fable as an unqualified literal assertion by Traherne.
Source note
Primary text: IV.78.