From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordTraduction is a mediated rendering, including the inward translation a reader makes when reading another idiom.
- In JoubertThe universal statement about foreign books includes both a translation made for us and one we make ourselves; knowing a language does not remove mediation in this formulation.
- In this editionThe English translation uses aphoristic for sentencieux, avoiding its modern disparaging English cognate.
- A place to beginTranslation includes the reader’s own inward rendering.
- English renderings
- translation; translate
Meaning
Traduction is a mediated rendering, including the inward translation a reader makes when reading another idiom.
Use in the book
The universal statement about foreign books includes both a translation made for us and one we make ourselves; knowing a language does not remove mediation in this formulation. The practical prescription differentiates expansively translating orators and wordy moralists from strictly translating poets and aphoristic writers, according to their nature. A separate warning distrusts fixed rhythm and number imposed by a translator when the original has no corresponding movement. The criticism of Florian concerns a conflict between elegance and Cervantes’s familiar good nature, not an objection to elegance under every circumstance.
Places to read
- II, p. 877, entry 3, ¶1Translation includes the reader’s own inward rendering.
- II, p. 557–558, entry 10, ¶2Different kinds of authors call for expansive or strict translation.
- II, p. 652, entry 10, ¶1Imposed rhythm can alter an original’s character.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses aphoristic for sentencieux, avoiding its modern disparaging English cognate. Strictly does not itself specify a mechanical word-for-word procedure. The novel in the Florian comparison remains unnamed, and number is a rhetorical quality, not a count.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 557, 558, 652, 877.