Naïveté

Use in the book

The quoted definition of the sublime as the artlessness of greatness receives Joubert’s approval. Naïveté elsewhere implies trust without reflection and innocence: it risks ridicule but deserves none. Its flowing expression can possess grace without precision, a limitation that does not annul the grace. The distinction from frankness turns on foresight: naïveté does not foresee mockery, while frankness foresees it without fear. The translation comparison then makes natural simplicity depend on verbal form, especially the two opposing but clauses that the anonymous version removes. Finally even naïveté can be aped in literature; the appearance of artlessness is not proof of its presence.

Places to read

1. I, p. 378, entry 5, ¶1Artlessness contributes to the sublime.
2. I, p. 435, entry 1, ¶1Trust without reflection risks undeserved ridicule.
3. II, p. 512, entry 4, ¶1Ingenuous expression has grace without precision.
4. II, p. 641, entry 10, ¶1Naïveté differs from frankness by foresight of ridicule.
5. II, p. 775, entry 2, ¶1A translation can destroy natural simplicity by changing relations.
6. II, p. 885, entry 7, ¶1Literature can imitate even naïveté.

Translation in this edition

The English translation varies naïveté, artlessness, artless, ingenuous and natural simplicity according to context. The sublime passage preserves an ambiguous it: its referent may be the sublime or its artless quality. The Antiphilus example reports Joubert’s comparison; neither its Greek original nor its intermediary translation has been independently verified.

Use in the book

The appeal to frank, naïve nature opposes living openness to art's painted idols and exclusive rules. The word belongs to a poetics of directness: nature need not dress itself in borrowed embellishment. In the conversion scene, the older man's willingness to be led by a much younger friend is similarly touching because it lacks the expected assertion of status.

The letter containing petals and grass extends the value into social life. Guérin's delight seems difficult to explain among people whose primitive instincts have been altered by society. Preserved simplicity must hide itself for fear of ridicule. Naïveté is thus neither ignorance nor an easy public pose; it may survive as a vulnerable, guarded capacity for pleasure.

But the children who instinctively make him their toy possess a biting naïveté. Their behavior is not calculating adult malice, yet its unreflectiveness does not make it harmless. This occurrence prevents the lexical family from being translated everywhere as moral goodness.

Guérin values what is immediate and unspoiled without claiming that everything spontaneous is benevolent. The word marks a relation to convention and self-consciousness first; innocence and tenderness are frequent possibilities, not its guaranteed effects.

Places to read

1. 21 March 1833 · ¶3Naïve nature is frank and inclusive, set against painted artistic idols.
2. 10 April 1833 · ¶1An older man's openness to a young guide in faith is touching and unpretentious.
3. 13 June 1834 · ¶1Children's biting naïveté wounds without the narrator attributing deliberate malice.
4. 22 August 1834 · ¶1Primitive pleasure in a friend's floral enclosure survives under concealment from society.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English uses “innocent” for nature, “almost innocent” in the conversion scene, “biting innocence” for the children, and “innocent instincts” for social simplicity. The French family reveals their common concern with uncontrived behavior while preserving different moral effects.