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 wordVibration and undulation describe oscillating or spreading movement.
- In JoubertThe early musical account compares circulation in happy love with sound’s undulations in a smooth, homogeneous resonant body.
- In this editionThe English translation keeps string and nerve as alternatives, not an identical modern mechanism.
- A place to beginUndulation is part of a proposed bodily and musical correspondence.
- English renderings
- vibration; undulation; undulations
Meaning
Vibration and undulation describe oscillating or spreading movement. In literary judgments, the felt physical effect may support emotion or fail to become it.
Use in the book
The early musical account compares circulation in happy love with sound’s undulations in a smooth, homogeneous resonant body. Its physiological claim is more extensive than the comparison itself can establish. The contrast between kinds of clarity makes poetic meaning continue to resound in many undulations, while another kind falls back into itself. But the judgment of Céruti finds more vibration than emotion, more string or nerve than heart or intelligence. Repeated movement is therefore not a sufficient condition of inward significance.
Places to read
- I, p. 66–67, entry 3, ¶1Undulation is part of a proposed bodily and musical correspondence.
- II, p. 558, entry 8, ¶1Poetic meaning is imagined as continuing in resonant waves.
- II, p. 596, entry 14, ¶1Stylistic vibration can exceed emotion and intelligence.
Translation in this edition
The English translation keeps string and nerve as alternatives, not an identical modern mechanism. The pronouns in the clarity comparison remain as printed; its later masculine first is not repaired with an invented noun. No acoustic experiment is claimed by the Lexicon.
Oscillation
French: oscillation.
The pendulum’s overly rapid oscillations supply an analogy for lively minds and passionate men whose hearts may be said to beat too fast. The wording remains comparative and conditional. The English translation retains oscillations instead of diagnosing the described people or naming an instrument actually used to examine them.
Places to read: I, p. 246, entry 6, ¶1.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 66, 67, 246; II, pp. 558, 596.