Author
Fuller read the Socratic dialogues in sequence in 1833 and parted from them with regret: “I could have wished to ‘enchant myself,’ as Socrates would say, with him some days longer.” She returned to Plato in 1839 when she could not write, hoping to recover clarity through his precision. He functions throughout her career as a philosophical companion — the standard against which she measures contemporary thought, and finds it wanting. Euthyphro she considered the best specimen of Socratic argument she had read; her assessment of the Phaedo is characteristically independent. She reads Plato as a philosopher, not as an ornament: the dialogues matter because the questions matter.
Harvard College Library loan
Charged out of Gore Hall on the card of Richard Frederick Fuller, Margaret's brother and then a Harvard senior; women could not borrow in their own name. Household access, not proof of her reading — not counted toward engagements. The full ledger →
Plato functions differently from the literary authors in this catalogue: he is a philosophical standard rather than a literary influence.
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 Plato’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“read Plato with Eliz instead- That morng and no doubt he was a more profitable companion”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 3d May 1833
"read Plato with Eliz" is an explicit, dated reading statement.
“The "Apology" I deem only remarkable for the noble tone of sentiment, and beautiful calmness.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 3 June 1833
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re567 (L-2 Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth, letter_1012.txt; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Continues the same first-person dialogue-reading report on the Platonic dialogues ('The Apology I deem only remarkable...').
“Crito" I have read only once, but like it.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 3 June 1833
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re566 (L-2 Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth, letter_1012.txt; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Explicit 'Crito I have read only once, but like it.'
1833
Sequential reading of the dialogues — Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo read in sequence and assessed individually.
1839–1844
Return as tuning instrument — the December 1839 entry, reading Plato when unable to write, through the Conversations and Dial years.
1845–1848
Quieter but present — Plato as background philosophical standard in the Tribune essays and later letters.
“I part with Plato with regret: I could have wished to “enchant myself,” as Socrates would say, with him some days longer. Eutyphron is excellent. ’Tis the best specimen I have ever seen of that mode of convincing.”
“Dec. 26, 1839. [...] I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write. I hoped to be tuned up thereby. I perceive, with gladness, a keener insight in myself, day by day.”
“I was much affected by Phaedo, but think the argument weak in many respects — the conclusion far exceeding the premises.”
Analyzed
Further works
Further works documented in the catalogue
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“read Plato with Eliz instead- That morng and no doubt he was a more profitable companion than either you or A and talked on topicks of as much interest as you could have done”
Inferred Fuller explicitly states she read Plato with Elizabeth Randall one morning, personifying Plato as "a more profitable companion" and demonstrating active engagement with his works without naming a specific dialogue.
“I part with Plato with regret: I could have wished to 'enchant myself' as Socrates would say with him some days longer.- Eutyphron is excellent.”
“Criton I have only read once but like it I have not got it in my head tho' so clearly as the others”
“I was much affected by Phaedon but think the argument weak in many respects- The nature of abstract ideas is clearly set forth: but there is no justice in reasoning from their existence that our souls have lived previous to our present state”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
“Eutyphron is excellent. 'T is the best specimen I have ever seen of that mode of convincing.”
“Crito" I have read only once, but like it. I have not got it in my heart though, so clearly as the others.”
“The "Apology" I deem only remarkable for the noble tone of sentiment, and beautiful calmness.”
Also reprinted in The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. VI: 1850. Counted once, at its first appearance.
“I was much affected by Phaedo, but think the argument weak in many respects.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“I have got a vol of Plato and other good books, but can read little.”
“I have now three good letters from you and think I will write you one. I pay you a compliment in so doing for I have just been reading Plato's Phaedrus”
Inferred She later alludes directly to the work's famous image of the charioteer managing two horses representing the rational and passionate parts of the soul, writing of "the wise charioteer managed both his steeds," as Hudspeth identified.
“last night I banqueted with him”
“the wise charioteer managed both his steeds; he needed not to unyoke either but chose rather to remember their several natures”
Inferred Fuller alludes to Plato's famous charioteer allegory from the Phaedrus (246a–254e), where the soul is likened to a charioteer managing two horses—one noble and rational, one base and passionate.
“I studied over parts of Goethe; and read two of Plato's dialogues, and a no of the London and Westminster [...] little bits of Plato, Coleridge, Goethe and Ben Jonson”
“today I have been so absurd as to read nearly a volume of Plato, and naturally I feel rather discomposed tonight.”
Fuller records reading "nearly a volume of Plato" and notes it left her feeling "discomposed," While she names no specific dialogue here, Hudspeth identified this refers to the same reading she reports in another letter, which she identifies more precisely as Theaetetus and Philebus in Letter 242.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“I have only read this time Phaedrus and the Banquet, but, I have had this vol several times before. I think when I am tranquil to read it.”
“I have only read this time Phaedrus and the Banquet, but, I have had this vol several times before.”
“I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write. I hoped to be tuned up thereby.”
Inferred Fuller reports sustained reading of Plato across a week, undertaken as intellectual discipline to sharpen her faculties when unable to write, though she names no specific dialogues here (the Theaetetus and Philebus are identified in another letter from that week).
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“Theatetus I read with attention and great profit.”
“In the midst of Philebus I was compelled to stop.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“we get rid of these notions about remembering a better state.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal November 1841." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1086; Box 5.
Inferred Fuller mentions Plato by name in connection with the theory of pre-existence and recollection ('remembering a better state'), and again at page 29 as one of the few writers commanding her intellectual respect. The specific work she has in mind is most likely the Phaedo or Meno (doctrine of anamnesis/recollection) but no specific title is named. Plato is named explicitly twice.
“In reading Plato, in looking at these designs it is impossible not to feel as if our race on the whole knew then its destination.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Genesis of the Greek Gods." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.
“I had before known only the Socrates of Plato, one much more to my mind.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred This represents prior reading of Plato's dialogues, though she does not name a specific dialogue.
“they would be as significant of the highest New England life in this era, as Plato's marvellous Dialogues were of the life of Attica, in his time”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
“It lived one life as Plato, another as Michel Angelo or Luther.”
Fuller, Margaret. "A Credo." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 97.
Inferred Fuller names Plato explicitly ('It lived one life as Plato') but cites no specific work. Plato is listed alongside Michelangelo and Luther as an exemplar of the universal spirit's self-expression. No title is named or fingerprinted in the text. Fuller names Plato as one of the great spirit-expressions of humanity (p8, lines 460–463).
“no golden Plato is anything to me compared with thee [...] Beethoven's adoration for Plato's "Republic”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Beethoven." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“Such was the romance of Socrates when he bade his disciples "sacrifice a cock to Aesculapius.”
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
Inferred Fuller quotes Socrates' last words from Plato's Phaedo (117e?118a): 'Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; pay it and do not forget.' These were Socrates' dying words, directing his friends to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius (god of healing), traditionally interpreted as thanks for the cure of life (death releasing the soul from the body).
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“June 3, 1833. — I part with Plato with regret. I could have wished to 'enchant myself,' as Socrates would say, with him some days longer. Eutyphron is excellent...”
“Dec. 26, 1839. [...] I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write. I hoped to be tuned up thereby.”
Inferred During the week of December 26, 1839, Margaret Fuller engaged with the philosophical writings of Plato, noting, "I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write.
“As I was steeped in the divine tenth book of the Republic, came ——'s letter...”
This entry identifies Plato's Republic, specifically Book X, which Fuller describes as "the divine tenth book." While not quoting directly, Fuller relates her engagement with this profound philosophical text to a moment of personal distraction, noting she was "steeped in" it and finished an "obstinate" reading before seeking solace in nature.
“The first seeks, according to Plato's myth, another half, as being not entire in itself, but needing a kindred nature to unlock its secret chambers of emotion, and to act with quickening influence on all its powers, by full harmony of senses, affections, intellect, will”
Inferred Fuller engages with Plato's enduring myth of the divided self, as recounted in the Symposium, wherein original human beings formed from two halves seek their complementary other half. Fuller's reference to "Plato's myth" suggests familiarity with such classical dialogues, likely through contemporary translations.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“Would I study carefully those works of art in which learned heathen have embodied their dark surmises as to the divine and human, or groped in unaided philosophical search after God, and only arrived at the sublime but dim hopes of Socrates and Plato, and would I allow to be comparatively unknown that gospel which Jesus Christ brought down to earth ?”
Fuller, Richard Frederick. Recollections of Richard F. Fuller. Boston: privately printed, 1936.
Inferred Richard is paraphrasing Margaret's argument to him about Bible study. Margaret cites 'Socrates and Plato' as classical philosophers who reached only 'sublime but dim hopes' about God — contrasting them unfavorably with Christian revelation.