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 wordTendresse is an affective disposition whose strength need not take the form of exaltation or constant gratification.
- In JoubertThe opposition between tenderness that satisfies itself and tenderness that restrains itself turns nourishment and exhaustion in unexpected directions: privation can sustain what repeated satisfaction spends.
- In this editionThe English translation keeps tender apart from exalted and translates de sens rassis as in one’s sober senses.
- A place to beginRestraint and satisfaction affect tenderness differently.
- English renderings
- tenderness; tender
Meaning
Tendresse is an affective disposition whose strength need not take the form of exaltation or constant gratification.
Use in the book
The opposition between tenderness that satisfies itself and tenderness that restrains itself turns nourishment and exhaustion in unexpected directions: privation can sustain what repeated satisfaction spends. Another note assigns tenderness to the heart while reserving exaltation for imagination and passion for the body. Its demand for sober love criticizes a way of loving falsely, not necessarily deception. The compressed description of tenderness as the repose of passion makes rest internal to feeling. These related formulations should not be fused into a claim that tenderness has no intensity or that passion has simply vanished.
Places to read
- I, p. 306, entry 1, ¶1Restraint and satisfaction affect tenderness differently.
- II, p. 511, entry 9, ¶1A tender heart is distinguished from an exalted one.
- II, p. 670, entry 5, ¶1Tenderness is called passion’s repose.
Translation in this edition
The English translation keeps tender apart from exalted and translates de sens rassis as in one’s sober senses. Repose retains the ambiguity of rest without announcing the extinction of passion.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 306; II, pp. 511, 670.