Author
Robert Burns is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, and manuscripts (1820–1849). 7 distinct works are named, most often in Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . III., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “quoted”.
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Robert Burns’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“I have read naught save Massinger, Miss Baillie and now and then some of Burns-”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [ca. 1820]
Same explicit reading statement names Robert Burns.
“Yet, while they were clapping their hands, the sun ceased not to shine, nor the grass to grow, neither the genius of Byron, Burns and Goethe to continue its irresistible work, quite independent of the loosely arranged arguments of the orator.”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“I have read naught save Massinger, Miss Baillie and now and then some of Burns”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller mentions reading "some of Burns" without citing a specific poem or collection.
“I played "Mary list awake," Bruce's address to his army,"—and "Oh this is the spot.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller names "Bruce's address to his army," a piano piece she played at a gathering at Miss Wells's, identified by Hudspeth as Robert Burns's "Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn" (also known as "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled"), which first appeared in the newspaper The Morning Chronicle in 1794 and later in George Thomson's Original Scotish Airs (1799).
“Shakspeare and Burns next time”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“a democrat to the tune of Burns: / 'The rank is but the guinea's stamp; / The man's the gowd for a' that.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p46
Inferred Fuller quotes Robert Burns explicitly, noting "to the tune of Burns," and provides the first two lines of "For a' That and a' That" (composed January 1795) verbatim: "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, / The man's the gowd for a' that." The poem is identified by this quotation from the lyric.
“It is sad when a man lays down the burden of life frustrated in every purpose, learning only the lesson Man was made to mourn, but not why?”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller uses "Man was made to mourn" as a proverbial phrase, but it is the title and central refrain of Burns's eleven-stanza dirge composed autumn 1784 and published in his Kilmarnock edition. Fuller adds "but not why?"—a twist implying familiarity with the poem while questioning its conclusions.
“the rank is but the guinea stamp, / The mans the gowd,”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Beethoven." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Inferred Fuller quotes the opening of the second stanza without naming Burns or the poem; the lines are identifiable fingerprints of 'A Man's a Man for A' That.'. / For a' that, an' a' that, / Our toils obscure, an' a' that, / The rank is but the guinea's stamp, / The man's the gowd, for a' that.' Fuller's quotation is close but not verbatim (dropping the possessive apostrophe on 'guinea').
“Her prentice han' she tried on man, / And then she made the lasses o',”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Inferred Lines 'Her prentice han' she tried on man, / And then she made the lasses o'' are from Burns' 'Green Grow the Rashes, O' (1787). These lines are from Robert Burns' 'Green Grow the Rashes, O' (Kilmarnock edition 1787): 'Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears / Her noblest work she classes, O: / Her prentice han' she try'd on man, / An' then she made the lasses, O!' Quoted without attribution.
These lines are from Robert Burns' 'Green Grow the Rashes, O' (Kilmarnock edition 1787): 'Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears / Her noblest work she classes, O: / Her prentice han' she try'd on man, / An' then she made the lasses, O!' Quoted without attribution.
“He was the friend of liberty, the friend of man, in the sense that Burns was ? of the native nobleness of man.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
Fuller, Margaret. "Italy." New-York Daily Tribune, 13 November 1845. · 13 November 1845
“A man’s a man for a’ that,” the fagged weaver brightens up. His very shuttle skytes boldly along”
Fuller, Margaret. "Thom’s Poems." New-York Daily Tribune, 22 August 1845. · 22 August 1845
“The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man’s the gowd for a’ that.” “A man’s a man for a’ that”
Fuller, Margaret. "The Irish Character." New-York Daily Tribune, 15 July 1845. · 15 July 1845
“Yet, while they were clapping their hands, the sun ceased not to shine, nor the grass to grow, neither the genius of Byron, Burns and Goethe to continue its irresistible work, quite independent of the loosely arranged arguments of the orator.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Translations from the German." New-York Daily Tribune, 14 March 1845. · 14 March 1845
“For a' that, and a' that, / And mickle mair for a' that.”
Inferred The quoted phrase, "For a' that, and a' that, / And mickle mair for a' that," is from Robert Burns's poem "A Man's a Man for A' That" (composed 1795, published 1796). The source is inferred from this universally recognized Scots phrase, though Burns is not explicitly named.
“A man's a MAN for a' that;”
“are but the guinea's stamp; / The man's the gold;”
The poem is also quoted in a separate entry (B-1-35).
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“he was requested to sing one of his songs for the entertainment of the company.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
Inferred Margaret Fuller references Robert Burns's well-known democratic anthem, "“A Man's a Man for A' That”" (1795), describing how the poet defiantly "thundered forth" its verses when relegated to the servants' table. Fuller's designation of the song as "his grand song" indicates her admiration and familiarity with Burns's work, recognizing its powerful expression of inherent human worth regardless of social status.