Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Alfred Tennyson(1809–1892)

Tennyson is the dominant voice of the contemporary moment in Fuller’s Dial and Tribune years — quoted often, assessed precisely, held at exactly enough critical distance to take him seriously. The 1842 Poems she read closely: Dora, Locksley Hall, The Two Voices, Morte d’Arthur, in which she found “my own life, much of it, written truly.” Her characterization — “the songster” — is not a dismissal but a classification. She distinguishes him from the poets she considers more intellectually ambitious without diminishing what he does best.

The Skipping-Rope

Her note that “The Skipping-Rope” must have been written for her is a lighter, more personal register — Tennyson is someone she could also enjoy without analyzing.

Engagement
ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in
Letters · Books · Essays · Journals · Notebooks · Manuscripts
Documented
1836–1847

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 Alfred Tennyson’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
  • 1839Work not namedPossible

    “I thought to send Tennyson this time, but I cannot part with him, it must be for next pacquet.”

    Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 24 November 1839

    Possible: a Tennyson volume in her possession that she cannot yet part with. Predates every other Tennyson reading event (1842 onward). Fuller to Ralph Waldo Emerson; provenance per Harvey's extraction: letter to Emerson, printed in Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1884).

  • 1842DoraAttested

    “In Dora, Locksley Hall, the Two Voices, Morte D'Arthur, I find my own life, much of it, written truly out.”

    Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · 'August, 1842. Cambridge'

    Same letter/date as explicit Tennyson reading statement (idx 1048), naming specific poem 'Dora' she has been reading.

  • 1842Locksley HallAttested

    “In Dora, Locksley Hall, the Two Voices, Morte D'Arthur, I find my own life, much of it, written truly out.”

    Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · 'August, 1842. Cambridge'

    Same letter/date as explicit Tennyson reading statement, naming 'Locksley Hall'.

Phases of engagement

  1. 1836–1839

    Early acquaintance — Tennyson encountered but not yet the subject of sustained analysis.

  2. 1840–1846

    Critical assessment — the Dial years and Tribune criticism, with the 1842 Poems analyzed closely and The Princess also engaged.

In Fuller’s words

“Tennyson is more simply the songster than any poet of our time. With him the delight of musical expression is first, the thought second.”
Manuscript notebook · 1842 — Poems (1842)
“In Dora, Locksley Hall, the Two Voices, Morte D’Arthur, I find my own life, much of it, written truly.”
Journal, as later reported in the Memoirs · 1842 — Poems (1842)
“I am sorry that Tennyson, who spoke with such fitness of all the others in his “Dream of fair women,” has not of Iphigenia...”
Woman in the Nineteenth Century · 1845 — “A Dream of Fair Women”

When Fuller engaged with Alfred Tennyson

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist19records
V. New York6records
VI. Europe3records
✦. Memoirs (1852)1record
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

Tennyson in Fuller’s reading world

Analyzed and quoted

  • Poems (1842) — analyzed most extensively·
  • The Princess: A Medley·
  • “A Dream of Fair Women” (quoted in Woman in the Nineteenth Century)·
  • “The Skipping-Rope”·
  • “St. Simeon Stylites”·
  • “The Lady of Shalott”·
  • “The Mystic”·
  • “The Poet’s Mind”

Further works

  • Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830)·
  • In Memoriam A.H.H.

Further works documented in the catalogue

Documentary evidence

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

1836—

Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837

p85, p108–p109, p180–p182, p188
excerpted · read2 selected passagesManuscript page
“From Tennyson. Wan wasted truth in her utmost need [...] 'The million stars which tremble / Oer the deep mind of dauntless infancy.' [...] 'The Ox / Feeds in the herb [...] Tennyson.”

(3) pp180–182 [not in SMF hand]: 'The Poet's Mind' and 'The Mystic' — both from Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830). (4) p188 [not in SMF hand]: 'The Deserted House Tennyson' — from Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830). Fuller also opens section at p85 with fragments from 'The Poet' (1832 Poems) and 'The Mystic' and some unidentified Tennyson fragments. Cataloged as one entry covering both 1830 and 1832 volumes, citing the earlier collection as primary.

“The poet in a golden clime was born / With golden stars above; / Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, / The love of love.”

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

1838—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p323
read
“if possible, get from J. Dwight Tennyson's 2d vol and the Lives of Hayden and Mozart for me.”

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

Inferred Fuller asks Sturgis to obtain "Tennyson's 2d vol" from J. Dwight, referring to Poems (1833), the second volume of Tennyson's published work, which contained "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lotos-Eaters," and other important early poems.

1839—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p32
quoted · read2 selected passages
“Lying broad awake and yet Remaining from the body, and apart In intellect, and power, and will, To hear Time flowing in the middle of the night And all things creeping to the day of doom.”

Inferred Fuller quotes this passage from Tennyson's "The Mystic" while chiding Emerson for postponing his lecture on "Genius" due to lost sleep, ironically identifying him with the poem's mystical figure who lies "broad awake" yet transcends the body.

“I thought to send Tennyson this time, but I cannot part with him, it must be for next pacquet.”

Inferred Fuller names Tennyson explicitly but no specific work, saying she "cannot part with him" and intends to send her copy to Emerson in the next packet—implying active reading of a volume in her possession.

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

1840—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p124
read
“Here are Chapman and Tennyson, and Mr E's letter which give me tomorrow.”

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

1840—

Letter to William H. Channing

p190
read2 selected passages
“the most beautiful of all the melodies While I view etc.”

Fuller names 'Tennyson's Elegiacs' explicitly — Hudspeth identified this as 'Leonine Elegiacs,' published in Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (London, 1830).

“There was a young man with us with a most poetic face. I met him again next day at dinner, his name is Heath. He talked of the Lady of Shalot and looked as if he might have lived as she did.”

Fuller mentions John Francis Heath talking of 'the Lady of Shalot' — Hudspeth identified this as Tennyson's poem, first published in Poems (London, 1833, though dated 1832).

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

1842—

Letter to Charles K. Newcomb

p77
quoted · read
“from the brain of the purple mountain" flowed forth cheer to my somewhat weary mind”

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

Inferred Hudspeth identified the source as Tennyson's "The Poet's Mind" from Poems (1:51), and Fuller quotes the exact phrase "brain of the purple mountain" from the poem's second stanza.

1842—

Letter to William H. Channing(?)

p80
analyzed · quoted · read4 selected passages
“I have just been reading the new poems of Tennyson. Much has he thought, much suffered, since the first ecstasy of so fine an organization clothed all the world with rosy light.”

Hudspeth identified Fuller reviewed this edition in The Dial 3 (1842):273-76, and she provides extended critical commentary on his development from early ecstatic verse to calmer later work, confirming active reading in August 1842.

“One of his themes has long been my favorite,—the last expedition of Ulysses,—and his, like mine, is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, with his deep romance of wisdom, and not the worldling of the Iliad.”

Fuller explicitly identifies and discusses Tennyson's "Ulysses" as a long-time favorite, analyzing its treatment of the Odyssey hero and contrasting him with the Iliad worldling.

“In Dora, Locksley Hall, the Two Voices, Morte D'Arthur, I find my own life, much of it, written truly out.”

She identifies with all four, stating she finds her own life "written truly out" in them, and they are cataloged collectively since her commentary applies to the group as a whole.

“The true text is: "Mine own Telemachus / He does his work-I mine.”

Inferred Fuller quotes loosely from Tennyson's "Ulysses" (Poems, 1842): "He does his work—I mine" versus Tennyson's "He works his work, I mine," and adds "Mine own Telemachus." Hudspeth identified the source as the canonical lines beginning "Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere / Of common duties,"

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

1842—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

read
“Have you not liked much Tennyson's new poems?”

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

1842—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p97
analyzed · read
“I am inclined to suspect H. T.”

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

Hudspeth identified the error should read "infancy,"

1842—

Letter to George T. Davis

p105
analyzed · read
“I was surprised to hear from James you had not read Tennyson.- Do read him at once. He has solved his own problems.”

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

Inferred Fuller urges her cousin George Davis to read Tennyson immediately, saying "He has solved his own problems," but names no specific work. The most likely referent is Tennyson's Poems (1842), the major collection then in print, as Fuller had written about Tennyson in the Dial.

1842—

Journal 1833–1842

p53–p56
analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page
“Poems. By ALFRED TENNYSON. Two Volumes. Boston: W. D. Ticknor. TENNYSON is more simply the songster than any poet of our time.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1833–1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (83); Box 5 (83).

1842—

Journal Fragments, 1842

p30
analyzed · read
“things I would not go on with my own work, so wrote little piece on Tennyson for the Dial.”

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

Inferred Reading inferred from the composition of her Dial notice; no title given in the journal.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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

1842—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p131
analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages
“I remember that Margaret said, that Tennyson's little poem of the skipping-rope must have been written for her, where the lover, expressing his admiration of the fairy-like motion and the light grace of the lady, is told — 'Get off, or else my skipping-rope Will hit you in the eye.”
“The true text is: — "Mine own Telemachus He does his work — I mine.”

Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses," published in his 1842 collection Poems, by quoting and adapting the lines, "Mine own Telemachus / He does his work — I mine." These words, a condensed recollection from the poem's description of Telemachus, are presented by Fuller as "the true text" to commend Ralph Waldo Emerson's distinct and independent method of work.

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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