Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué(1777–1843)

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, and published essays (1839–1846). 6 distinct works are named, most often in Library of Choice Reading., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “translated”.

Engagement
TranslatedAnalyzedReadMentioned
Present in
Letters · Books · Essays
Documented
1839–1846
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 →

In Fuller’s words

“No tale ever found more universal acceptance than Undine. It is one of those writings, so rare in literature, where some lines have really been transcribed from the innermost life of the writer.”
Undine · Library of Choice Reading. · 1845

When Fuller engaged with Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist1record
V. New York6records
VI. Europe3records
✦. Memoirs (1852)
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Fouqué in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1839—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p43
analyzed · read
“No one can predict what will be the fate of these Undine's when they get their souls by wedlock.”

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

Inferred Fuller alludes to Fouqué's Undine (1811) by referencing women who "get their souls by wedlock," echoing the novella's central conceit that the water sprite Undine gains a soul through marriage to the knight Huldbrand.

1843—

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843

read
“_S_. You would make a pretty Undine, to be sure!”

Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.

Inferred The dialogue character S. addresses J. as a potential 'Undine,' referring to the water sprite heroine of Fouqué's famous novella Undine (1811). The next line reinforces the elemental spirit framework. Fuller clearly draws on Fouqué's widely read tale. 'Undine' was a proper name uniquely associated with this work.

1844—

Letter to Sarah Shaw

p226
analyzed · read
“The association of Undine with these ugly books pictures the course of too many lives.”

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

Inferred Fuller alludes to Fouqué's Undine, the Romantic fairy tale about an elemental water-spirit who marries a mortal knight. Hudspeth identified the reference and note that Fuller had engaged deeply with Undine as a type of feminine spiritual power, discussing it in Woman in the Nineteenth Century; here she comments on how women's spiritual vitality becomes associated with sentimental domestic literature.

Hudspeth identified the reference and note that Fuller had engaged deeply with Undine as a type of feminine spiritual power, discussing it in Woman in the Nineteenth Century; here she comments on how women's spiritual vitality becomes associated with sentimental domestic literature.

1845—

Library of Choice Reading.

“Library of Choice Reading.”
analyzed · read3 selected passages
“No tale ever found more universal acceptance than Undine.”
“But, in Undine, there is that subtle interweaving of the divine with the natural and human, that penetration of the clods of earth by the rays of a distant sun”
“Sintram, the other tale, is only passable either in invention or execution.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Library of Choice Reading." New-York Daily Tribune, 4 April 1845.

1845—

The Fireside Library . . .

“The Fireside Library . . .”
translated · read2 selected passages
“This volume contains but one good story, but that is a truly charming one; “Aslaaga” from the German of La Motte Fouque.”
“This tale combines the high chivalric sentiment which characterizes this author with a poetic meaning almost as deep and sweet as in Undine.”

Fuller, Margaret. "The Fireside Library . . ." New-York Daily Tribune, 26 July 1845.

1846—

Wiley & Putnam’s Library.

“Wiley & Putnam’s Library.”
analyzed · read3 selected passages
“THIODOLF, AND ASLAUGA’S KNIGHT: By LA MOTTIE FOURQUE. Of late we have vainly tried to avail ourselves of the entertainments afforded by this series.”
“Thiodolf” has the usual charms of La Motte Fouque’s books. Who likes one in this noble, romantic style, likes all. The contrast between the Northern and Southern spirit is finely kept up.”
“Aslauga’s Knight” we have heretofore mentioned as a truly beautiful poem on ideal love, and next to “Undine,” the finest of his fictions.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Wiley & Putnam’s Library." New-York Daily Tribune, 4 April 1846.