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Language

Emphasis

emphase

Emphase concerns rhetorical amplification or inflated speech, not merely stressing an important word.

From the book

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II

Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordEmphase concerns rhetorical amplification or inflated speech, not merely stressing an important word.
  • In JoubertThe charlatan uses affected cold judgment or affected bombast to raise something above his own valuation of it.
  • In this editionThe English translation uses bombast, swelling and grandiloquence according to the local valuation.
  • A place to beginAffected bombast can deliberately overstate a speaker’s valuation.
English renderings
bombast; swelling; grandiloquence

Meaning

Emphase concerns rhetorical amplification or inflated speech, not merely stressing an important word. Its valuation is not uniform.

Use in the book

The charlatan uses affected cold judgment or affected bombast to raise something above his own valuation of it. Affectation qualifies both apparent sobriety and inflated language. The distinction between apt words and grand words, however, allows a swelling born of emotion and contemplation to become enthusiasm. Translating every occurrence pejoratively would erase that argument. The animal passage tentatively questions magnificent language for an animal and then condemns its grandiloquence. Its “perhaps” remains part of the opening judgment, and no particular species or external stylistic law is supplied.

Places to read

  1. I, p. 161, entry 4, ¶1Affected bombast can deliberately overstate a speaker’s valuation.
  2. II, p. 493, entry 7, ¶1Emotion distinguishes a potentially valid swelling from declamation.
  3. II, p. 779, entry 5, ¶1Magnificent language can be judged disproportionate to its subject.

Translation in this edition

The English translation uses bombast, swelling and grandiloquence according to the local valuation. Proper words means apt words, not proper names. The lexicon’s English title identifies the lexical family rather than prescribing the modern neutral rendering emphasis.

Source note

Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 161; II, pp. 493, 779.