1842—
Letter to William H. Channing
p67mentioned
“Confusius and Socrates were sages, not missionaries of religion.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Author
Confucius(551 BCE–479 BCE)
Confucius is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, and manuscripts (1842–1846). No work is named in the surviving passages, most often in The Celestial Empire., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
- Engagement
- AnalyzedReadMentioned
- Present in
- Letters · Books · Essays · Manuscripts
- Documented
- 1842–1846
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →
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 →
Confirmed reading
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Confucius’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
- Dated
- 1844Work not namedAttested
“studied much in evenings, Taylor's translations of the old Greek writers, the Confucious, the Desater, and Alkuna, a Scandinavian mythology, have been my best books.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 23d Novr 1844
First-person statement 'studied much in evenings... have been my best books' places these works in her hands at a specific time (Nov 1844).
In Fuller’s words
“Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of social justice. He never forgets conditions and limits; he is admirably wise, pure, and religious, but never towers above humanity ? never soars into solitude.”
When Fuller engaged with Confucius
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Documentary evidence
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
1842—
A Credo
p8mentionedManuscript page
“It gave laws with Confucius and Moses.”
Fuller, Margaret. "A Credo." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 97.
Inferred Fuller names Confucius explicitly ('It gave laws with Confucius and Moses') as a figure through whom the universal spirit expressed itself in lawgiving. No specific work is named. Confucius's principal associated text is the Analects (compiled by disciples after his death, c. 475–221 BCE).
1844—
Letter to William H. Channing
analyzed · read
“But even Confucius is too civic and limitary for outdoor reading.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
1844—
Letter to Richard F. Fuller
p247read
“studied much in evenings, Taylor's translations of the old Greek writers, the Confucious, the Desater, and Alkuna, a Scandinavian mythology, have been my best books.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
1845—
Swedenborgianism.
“Swedenborgianism.”mentioned
“Confucius has among the host one perfect disciple; others have been, in some degree, thus favoured, but Swedenborg had none such”
Fuller, Margaret. "Swedenborgianism." New-York Daily Tribune, 25 June 1845. · 25 June 1845
1845—
The Celestial Empire.
“The Celestial Empire.”mentioned3 selected passages
“Their great man, Confucius, expresses this social genius in its most perfect state and highest form. His golden wisdom is the quintescence of social justice.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
“At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great religious books of another Eastern nation, and it was always like leaving the street and the palace for the blossoming forest of the East”
“I feel that I know something of the Chinese when I read Confucius, or look at the figures on their tea-cups, or drink a cup of genuine tea”
Fuller, Margaret. "The Celestial Empire." New-York Daily Tribune, 13 November 1845.
1846—
Swedenborgianism
“Swedenborgianism”mentioned
“Confucius had among the host one perfect disciple; others have been, in some degree, thus favoured, but Swedenborg had none such, and he is not far enough off yet for the common sense of mankind to have marked out what is of leading importance in his thoughts.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p342
Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p342; page given is to the 1869 reprint.
Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
1828—
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli
p137read
“Margaret was reading, in these weeks, the Four Books of Confucius, the Desatir, some of Taylor's translations from the Greek, a work on Scandinavian Mythology, Moehler's Symbolism, Fourier's Noveau Monde Industriel, and Landor's Pentameron”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.