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 wordThe lyric is distinguished by concentrated poetic quality and an instinctive musical capacity.
- In JoubertThe vertical comparison allows a few pages or an ode as much mental breadth and power as a long epic.
- In this editionThe English translation keeps lyric and ode.
- A place to beginAn ode can rival an epic’s mental power through height.
- English renderings
- lyric; ode
Meaning
The lyric is distinguished by concentrated poetic quality and an instinctive musical capacity. The ode also exemplifies greatness that depends on height rather than sheer length.
Use in the book
The vertical comparison allows a few pages or an ode as much mental breadth and power as a long epic. It then complicates ranking through sustained sublimity and an awkward final exception; the advantage of small scale is not made absolute. The genre fragment calls the ode the most purely poetic form, contrasting the didactic philosopher, epic historian and dramatic combination of genres. Its missing label for the orator’s kind stays missing. The nightingale image finally presents the poet as a lyric or musical animal whose instinct should not be replaced by deliberate mind. The closing paradox, knowing what one is ignorant of, leaves that capacity unexplained rather than converting it into technical training.
Places to read
- II, p. 584, entry 6, ¶1An ode can rival an epic’s mental power through height.
- II, p. 732, entry 10, ¶1The lyric poet is distinguished from mixed poetic functions.
- II, p. 789, entry begun p. 788, no. 11, ¶2The lyric animal makes verse through instinctive capacity.
Translation in this edition
The English translation keeps lyric and ode. It does not reverse the difficult first/other pronouns in the greatness passage, fill the missing genre name, or dissolve the knows/ignorant paradox. [Born], [is] and [what] in the nightingale witness disclose contextual readings of damaged components.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 584, 732, 789.