Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Dante Alighieri(1265–1321)

Dante is Fuller’s benchmark for the highest poetry — the standard she invokes when she wants to measure the ambition of any other writer. In her essay on Goethe she writes that Faust “would have been the Divina Commedia of its age” had it been completed as begun. She read and taught all hundred cantos to her Italian class in 1837, worked through the Vita Nuova and the Convivio, and engaged with Dante as a critical question: how do we translate him without reducing him? Her assessment of Cary’s translation is precise — useful, but never a substitute for the Italian. The Italian years transformed this textual engagement: in Rome, witnessing the Republic and its fall, the Commedia’s themes of exile, loss, and the destruction of a city’s civic meaning were no longer literary.

Her friends among the old poets

Emerson placed Dante in the innermost circle of her Italian allegiances: “Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, were her friends among the old poets.”

Engagement
TranslatedExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Translated
  • Selected passages from the Divina Commedia and the Vita Nuova — embedded in essays and letters
Present in
Letters · Books · Essays · Journals · Notebooks · Manuscripts
Documented
1825–1848

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 Dante Alighieri’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
  • 1833Vita NuovaDemonstrated

    “At twenty-three she was so familiar with Dante that Emerson proposed her translating the "Vita Nuova.”

    Mem-3 Reminiscences of Edna Cheney · At twenty-three she was so familiar with Dante

    Engagement_type 'Translated' automatically qualifies per the rubric, tied to her documented familiarity with Dante at twenty-three.

  • 1836Divina CommediaAttested

    “the whole hundred cantos of the Divina Commedia, with the aid of the fine Athenaeum copy, Flaxman's designs, and all the best commentaries.”

    Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [ca. Summer 1837]

    Explicit statement of reading 'the whole hundred cantos of the Divina Commedia.'

  • 1837Work not namedAttested

    “I spent the early part of the eveg in reading bits of Dante with him and talking about the material sublime till half past nine”

    Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Boston. 11th April 1837.

    Explicit 'I spent the early part of the eveg in reading bits of Dante with him.'

Phases of engagement

  1. 1825–1835

    Sporadic early contact — Dante encountered before the Italian curriculum begins, but not yet central.

  2. 1836–1839

    Italian teaching and the hundred cantos — Fuller teaches the whole Divina Commedia to her Italian class (1837); the Vita Nuova and Convivio also engaged.

  3. 1840–1847

    Critical and personal deepening — Dante as philosophical benchmark in the Dial essays and letters, and, in the Italian years, imagery of exile and civic loss that had become personally resonant.

In Fuller’s words

“We think, then, that the use of Cary’s translation, or any other, can never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante... whosoever wants Cary’s version will rejoice, at last, to possess it in so fair and legible guise.”
Life Without and Life Within — on Cary’s translation of the Divina Commedia
“Dante, — thou didst not describe in all thy apartments of Inferno, this tremendous repression of an existence half unfolded, this swoon as the soul was ready to be born.”
Letter · 1841 — La Divina Commedia: Inferno
“Dante was a man, of vehement passions, many prejudices, bitter as much as sweet. His knowledge was scanty... But, constantly retiring to his deepest self, clearsighted to the limitations of man, but no less so to the illimitable energy of the soul.”
“Goethe,” Life Without and Life Within · 1841 — Dante in comparison
“I have read no Dante, nor thought about any lesson to you, but hope the inspiration will come with the hour— truly— I have had no appetite for his banquet. ... Dante,- thou didst not describe in all thy apartments of Inferno, this tremendous repression of an existence half unfolded, this swoon as the soul was ready to be born. Thy Lucifer upholds the earth, but bears not on his heart the weight of future heavens known not felt, pressing, yet still of incalculable dimensions.”
La Divina Commedia [The Divine Comedy] · Letter to Caroline Sturgis · 1841
“There came, too, a book from Mr Delf. It was translations from the Nova Vita and Convito of Dante with a fine head of him on the first leaf. The Vita Nova has been one of the most cherished companions of my life. Dante has made a record which corresponds in some degree with my intuitions as to the new life of love, although I have an idea of much beside what he mentions, for he loved from afar and never entered into for the most intimate relations.”
La Vita Nuova [The New Life] · Letter to James Nathan · 1845
“The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if he wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished fellow-students. The poems in the London book would aid much in a full appreciation of the comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but copies are not easily to be met here, unless in the great libraries.”
The Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri, Including the Poems of the Vita Nuova and Convito · New-York Daily Tribune · 1845

When Fuller engaged with Dante Alighieri

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence1record
III. Self-Directed1record
IV. Transcendentalist13records
V. New York14records
VI. Europe10records
✦. Memoirs (1852)2records
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

Alighieri in Fuller’s reading world

Translated by Fuller

  • Selected passages from the Divina Commedia and the Vita Nuova

Analyzed in depth

  • La Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)·
  • La Vita Nuova·
  • Convivio [Convito]

Further works

  • Cary’s translation, reviewed and assessed·
  • Lyell’s translation, noted

Further works documented in the catalogue

Manuscripts on digitalfuller.org

Transcribed from originals at Houghton Library, Harvard, and the Boston Public Library. The manuscripts are not supplementary — they are the evidence.

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1825—

Reading Notebook 1825–1827

p. 58
excerpted · quoted · readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“Dante's inscription over the gate of hell. Canto 3rd Inferno. / "Per me si va nella cità dolente: / "Per me si va nell'eterno dolore: / "Per me si va tra la perduta gente.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Reading Notebook 1825–1827." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Inferred Canto 3rd Inferno.' The famous inscription from the gate of Hell (Inferno III.1–9) is quoted in full in Italian. Also referenced on p. 139 where Fuller uses Dante's phrase 'Il mezzo del cammin di nostra vita' in her own prose.

Canto 3rd Inferno.' The famous inscription from the gate of Hell (Inferno III.1–9) is quoted in full in Italian.

1833—

Journal 1833–1834

p23
read
“and thou then good? Think of what Dante said; / Nor dare to hope a heaven, hereafter, since / Thou makest a place of penance of thy heart / And not a temple full of praise and incense.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1833–1834." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (4); Box 5 (83).

Inferred No specific Dante work is named; the passage appears to be a loose paraphrase or creative adaptation rather than a verbatim quotation.

1836—

Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837

p96–p97
excerpted · readManuscript page
“Dal proemio al Convito di Dante. / " Ahi!”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (43); Box 6 (43).

1837—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p269
read
“I spent the early part of the eveg in reading bits of Dante with him and talking about the material sublime till half past nine”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred William Ellery Channing, discussing the "material sublime," without specifying which work. The Divina Commedia is the most probable text given the context and the later evidence that she taught all 100 cantos to her Italian class, indicating it was her primary Dante text during this period.

1837—

Letter to Unknown

p278
analyzed · read
“the whole hundred cantos of the Divina Commedia, with the aid of the fine Athenaeum copy, Flaxman's designs, and all the best commentaries.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

1839—

Journal Entry: Winter 1838–1839

p24
quoted · readManuscript page
“mi manca la speranza. / Quanti dolci pensier, quanto desio / Mi son venuti nel solitario cammino.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Entry: Winter 1838–1839." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.

Inferred The opening phrase is too close to Dante's to be coincidental; Fuller likely quotes from memory with variation. Dante's 'menò costoro al doloroso passo'): she appears to be paraphrasing from memory, conflating the Dante opening with her own Italian or with another text not identified.

Dante's 'menò costoro al doloroso passo'): she appears to be paraphrasing from memory, conflating the Dante opening with her own Italian or with another text not identified.

1841—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p199
analyzed · read
“I have read no Dante, nor thought about any lesson to you, but hope the inspiration will come with the hour— truly— I have had no appetite for his banquet. ...”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

1841—

Reading Notes, 1841

p17
mentioned
“Philo-Judaeus, Swedenborg, Origen, Fenelon, Boethius, Madame Guyon, Mirandola, Dante, Petrarca, More, Cudworth, Norris.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Reading Notes, 1841." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1221 (Caroline Sturgis Tappan papers, 1838–1921).

1841—

The Dial

“Goethe” · Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1841
analyzed · read2 selected passages
“Faust, had it been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have been the Divina Commedia of its age.”
“Dante was a man, of vehement passions, many prejudices, bitter as much as sweet.”

This analytical moment, focusing on Dante's authorial persona rather than a structural comparison of Paradiso and Faust II, has been cataloged as a distinct entry.

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.

1842—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p102
analyzed · read2 selected passages
“When you were here, you seemed to think I might perhaps have done something on the Vita Nuova; and the next day I opened the book, and considered how I could do it...”
“Milnes and Longfellow have tried each their power at doing it in verse, and have done better, probably, than I could, yet not well.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

1842—

A Credo

p19
analyzed · readManuscript page
“It is the same with Shakspeare, and in a less degree with Dante.”

Fuller, Margaret. "A Credo." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 97.

1842—

Journal Fragments, 1842

p56
mentioned
“mine must not be merely the nature poet, like Shakspeare, and the ethical poet like Milton, but the religious and heroical poet like Dante.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Fragments, 1842." Margaret Fuller Family Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p18
analyzed · quoted · read6 selected passages
“Dante was far greater than any Roman, yet I feel he was right to take the Mantuan as his guide through hell, and to heaven.”

Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia through a reflection on the poet's choice of Virgil as his guide.

“she was well read in French, Italian, and German Literature... she was... a dear student of Dante and Petrarca”

Inferred This passage references Margaret Fuller's deep engagement with the works of Dante Alighieri. Though no specific title is named here, Fuller's sustained interest in Dante is further evidenced by later discussions of his Inferno.

“Dante, thou didst not describe, in all thy apartments of Inferno, this tremendous repression of an existence half unfolded; this swoon as the soul was ready to be born.”

Inferred Here, Margaret Fuller directly addresses Dante Alighieri, referencing his Inferno and its "apartments" to critique the poem's depiction of suffering.

“December, 1842. — When you were here, you seemed to think I might perhaps have done something on the Vita Nuova; and the next day I opened the book, and considered how I could do it.”
“She admitted that Dante's Narrative was instinct with the poetry concentrated often in single words.”

Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia, referred to here as 'Dante's Narrative,' noting that it "was instinct with the poetry concentrated often in single words." This observation, presented in the reporter's notes from her 1840-41 Fine Arts conversations, highlights Fuller's appreciation for the concentrated evocative power within Dante's epic narrative.

“Here,' said she, 'are Dante and Beatrice. "Approach, and know that I am Beatrice.”

Inferred Fuller, through the voice of Beatrice, quotes from the Purgatorio, specifically Beatrice’s declaration to Dante: "'Approach, and know that I am Beatrice. The power of ancient love was strong within me.'" This quotation, likely drawn from Beatrice’s appearance in Canto XXX, captures a poignant moment of recognition and powerful emotion within the epic poem.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.

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