Author
Jean Racine is documented in Fuller’s letters and manuscripts (1826–1846). One work is named, most often in Letter to Susan Prescott, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
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 Jean Racine’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“at the age of fifteen or sixteen ... Racine, and Castilian ballads are mentioned as read by her with delight”
Mem-3 Reminiscences of Edna Cheney · at the age of fifteen or sixteen
Same specific age-fifteen-or-sixteen claim regarding Racine.
“I am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Cambridge, 14 May 1826
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re310 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-01 l.2186-2188; tier A; same passage); re311 (Mem-4 Margaret Fuller by Julia Ward Howe, p.21; tier C; same passage) — counted once here. Same explicit studying statement names Racine.
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 am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller names Racine as one of her current studies in May 1826, though she does not specify which play.
“I have seen her in Mary Stuart, [illegible] and Phedre. There is nothing like her voice; she speaks the language of the Gods.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“note here the boy of 9 reading Corneille's and Racine's dissertations on the drama and studying Moliere of his own accord”
Fuller, Margaret. "Plan for a Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“I am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian baUads, with great delight.”
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 In May 1826, Fuller recorded her enthusiastic engagement with the French playwright Jean Racine alongside other figures of classical and contemporary literature. While she does not specify any particular work by Racine, her inclusion of the dramatist in this intensive study list suggests her immersion in French literary traditions during this period.