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 wordCiel and enfer are spatial words with religious and literary uses.
- In JoubertEarth made in heaven’s image parallels humanity made in God’s image.
- In this editionThe English translation uses underworld for the epic plural enfers and hell for the singular religious formulation.
- A place to beginEarth/heaven repeats the relation of humanity to divine image.
- English renderings
- heaven; hell; underworld
Meaning
Ciel and enfer are spatial words with religious and literary uses. Their rendering depends on the setting: plural enfers need not mean Christian hell.
Use in the book
Earth made in heaven’s image parallels humanity made in God’s image. The epic prescription, however, asks for heaven, earth and the underworld so that a poem’s world will be whole. Another compressed formulation makes hell divine anger “reduced to a place,” alongside passions personified as the Devil. These transformations into image, place and person should not disappear into a generic vocabulary of reward and punishment. The definition of religion’s task as loving heaven gives the spatial term an affective direction.
Places to read
- I, p. 172, entry 2, ¶1Earth/heaven repeats the relation of humanity to divine image.
- I, p. 264, entry 2, ¶1Epic needs the whole world, including the underworld.
- II, p. 628, entry 1, ¶2Hell is defined through an anger-to-place transformation.
- II, p. 808, entry 1, ¶2Religion is directed toward loving heaven.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses underworld for the epic plural enfers and hell for the singular religious formulation. It preserves the epic passage’s printed sequence of top, bottom and middle, even though that sequence does not mechanically align with the preceding three nouns.
Hell
French: enfer.
The singular is rendered hell where divine anger is made a place; plural enfers becomes underworld in the epic world-picture.
Places to read: II, p. 628, entry 1, ¶2; I, p. 264, entry 2, ¶1.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 172, 264; II, pp. 628, 808.