Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Edmund Spenser(c. 1552–1599)

Edmund Spenser is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, and reading notebooks (1827–1845). One work is named, most often in Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement
ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in
Letters · Books · Essays · Notebooks
Documented
1827–1845
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

“If Britomart finds Artegall bound in the enchanter's spell, can she doubt therefore him whom she has seen in the magic glass. A Britomart does battle in his cause and frees him from the evil power... To borrow again from your Spenser, I am entirely suited with the fate of the three brothers Diamond and the rest.”
The Faerie Queene · Letter to William H. Channing · 1841

When Fuller engaged with Edmund Spenser

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence1record
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist4records
V. New York6records
VI. Europe1record
✦. Memoirs (1852)
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

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

Spenser in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1827—

Reading Notebook 1825–1827

p. 103
analyzed · readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“I think that, which is very injurious as to impression in Spenser's / poem, is / the introduction of active personages under abstract names; I dislike the / allegory always prominent.”

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

Inferred Fuller mentions 'Spenser's poem' in contrast to the Italian poets but names no specific title; The Faerie Queene is the obvious reference.

1838—

Letter to Elizabeth S. Calvert

p352
quoted · read
“a letter directed to me at Groton, Mass would reach me and "make a sunshine in the shady place.”

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

Inferred Fuller quotes the phrase "make a sunshine in the shady place," which Hudspeth identified as coming from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto III, stanza 6, where the full passage describes Una's radiant face.

1841—

Letter to William H. Channing

p213
analyzed · read
“If Britomart finds Artegall bound in the enchanter's spell, can she doubt therefore him whom she has seen in the magic glass.”

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

1841—

The Dial

“Goethe” · Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1841
read
“till the lovers of the false Florimels hurl the true knight to the ground.”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p28

Inferred The phrase “false Florimels” alludes to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, in which the enchantress Duessa fashions a snow-woman replica of Florimell to deceive knights.

1843—

Letter to Elizabeth Hoar

p126
read
“there was your face at the window looking, indeed, like Unas and Sisters of Mercy.”

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

Inferred Fuller compares Elizabeth Hoar to "Unas and Sisters of Mercy," alluding to Una and the allegorical figures in Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto 10. Hudspeth identified that Fuller refers to Una (personification of Truth) and the three theological virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity—alongside Mercy, using the composite allusion to characterize Hoar as an embodiment of consolation and spiritual truth.

Hudspeth identified that Fuller refers to Una (personification of Truth) and the three theological virtues—Faith, Hope, and Charity—alongside Mercy, using the composite allusion to characterize Hoar as an embodiment of consolation and spiritual truth.

1843—

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843

excerpted · quoted · read2 selected passages
“You, Old Church, are of use, by keeping unforgot the effigies of old religion, and reviving the tone of pure Spenserian sentiment, which this time is apt to stifle in its childish haste.”

Inferred Fuller invokes 'pure Spenserian sentiment' as a quality associated with Old Church ? a tone of reverent, chivalric, and allegorical Christian piety characteristic of The Faerie Queene and Spenser's moral allegory more broadly

“A looking-glass, right wondrously aguized, / Whose virtues through the wyde world soon were solemnized.”

Inferred Fuller directly quotes eight stanzaic lines from The Faerie Queene, Book III, with explicit attribution ('Faerie Queene, Book III').

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

1844—

Letter to Georgiana Bruce

p223
read
“When I can, I will send 'The Fairy Queen' to the address you mention”

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

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

p55
analyzed · read2 selected passages
“The range of female character in Spenser alone might content us for one period.”

Inferred Named explicitly with multiple characters: Britomart, Belphoebe, Florimel, Una from The Faerie Queene. Fuller explicitly names Spenser with Britomart, Belphoebe, Florimel, and Una.

“follow Duessa, and lead you in the green glades where Una's feet have trod.”

Inferred Una and Duessa named explicitly from The Faerie Queene as emblems of truth and falsehood. Una (Truth) and Duessa (Falsehood/Duplicity) are allegorical figures in The Faerie Queene.

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.

1845—

Papers on Literature and Art

p26
read
“Read the pastoral parts of Spenser — Found in Petrarch's sonnets / Or at times a modern volume — Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl, / Howitt's ballad-dew, or Tennyson's god-vocal reverie, / Or from Browning some "Pomegranate,”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

1845—

Ole Bull.

“Ole Bull.”
mentioned
“In the case of such geniuses as Petrarch and Spenser, it requires an unspoiled nature, unspoiled by vice or the pedantry”

Fuller, Margaret. "Ole Bull." New-York Daily Tribune, 1 October 1845. · 1 October 1845

1845—

Miss Barrett’s Poems.

“Miss Barrett’s Poems.”
mentioned2 selected passages
“Signal instances occur to us in the cases of Spenser, Wordsworth and Tennyson. The woman who reads them will not find hardness or blindness”
“Read the pastoral parts of Spenser—or the subtle interflowings Found in Petrarch’s sonnets—here’s the book—the leaf is folded down!”

Fuller, Margaret. "Miss Barrett’s Poems." New-York Daily Tribune, 4 January 1845.

1845—

Review.

“Review.”
quoted · read
“A Waif, the which by fortune came Upon your seas, he claimed as property: And yet nor his, nor his in equity, But yours the waif by high prerogative.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Review." New-York Daily Tribune, 16 January 1845. · 16 January 1845