Author

Johann Ludwig Uhland(1787–1862)

Johann Ludwig Uhland is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, journals, and manuscripts (1834–1846). 4 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to Frederic H. Hedge, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement: ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Books · Journals · Manuscripts
Documented: 1834–1846

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 Johann Ludwig Uhland’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
1834Work not namedAttested
“I have been reading your favorite Uhland in some still midnight hours of late”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 26th Decr 1834
Explicit 'I have been reading your favorite Uhland in some still midnight hours of late.'
1836Justification (Rechtfertigung)Demonstrated
“I know not that I could give you a truer impression of them, than by these lines which I translate from the German of Uhland. They are entitled "Justification.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 17 April 1836
Translated engagement type qualifies automatically for the Demonstrated tier.

In Fuller’s words

“What says the benign Uhland ? " If our first lays too piteous have been, And you have feared our tears would never cease, If we too gloomily life's prose have seen, Nor suffered Man nor Mouse to dwell in peace, Yet pardon us for our youth's sake.”

If our first lays too piteous have been... · Modern British Poets · 1846

When Fuller engaged with Johann Ludwig Uhland

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed2records

IV. Transcendentalist4records

V. New York

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.

Uhland in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1834—

Letter to Frederic H. Hedge

p213

read

“I have your Uhland and three vols. of Richter which shall be faithfully returned as any other books you have the kindness to lend me.”

Fuller, Margaret. "To Frederic H. Hedge, 30 November 1834." In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817–1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth, 212–215. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Hudspeth identified uncertainty about which of Uhland's works she had, with the Gedichte (Tübingen: Cotta, 1815)—the canonical collection of his ballads and lyrics—being most likely.

1834—

Letter to Frederic H. Hedge

p215

analyzed · read

“I have been reading your favorite Uhland in some still midnight hours of late and begin to understand the meaning of certain critiques in your article on Schiller”

Fuller, Margaret. "To Frederic H. Hedge, 26 December 1834." In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817–1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth, 215–217. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

1835—

Letter to Frederic H. Hedge

p228

analyzed · read

“I return your Uhland which has been to me the source of much delight. I have kept him too long but you know I was absent from home a long time.”

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

Inferred Fuller returns Hedge's copy of Uhland, calling it "the source of much delight." The specific volume is unnamed but was likely Uhland's Gedichte (Poems), a collection of ballads and lyric poetry that reached its ninth edition by 1835.

1836—

Letter to Eliza R. Farrar

p247

excerpted · quoted · read

“I know not that I could give you a truer impression of them, than by these lines which I translate from the German of Uhland.”

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

Inferred Fuller translates and quotes the entire poem "Justification" ("Rechtfertigung") by Johann Ludwig Uhland, naming both author and title explicitly and providing her own English translation of all sixteen lines.

1839—

Journal April 1839

p48

excerpted · readManuscript page

“Vom Uhland / 'Anfangs sind wir fast zu kläglich, / Strömen endlos Thränen aus...' [unnamed lyric, pp. 48] / An den Tod.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal April 1839." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (Box A); Box 5 (99).

1842—

Letter to Frederic H. Hedge

p108

analyzed · read

“Lately I saw an engraving from the German Artist Lessing which brought you to mind; the subject is from Uhland's poem that you have liked so well The Castle by the Sea.”

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

Fuller names the poem explicitly as Uhland's "The Castle by the Sea." Hudspeth identified this is Ludwig Uhland's "Das Schloss am Meere" (1805), translated by Hedge in the July 1842 Dial; Fuller notes that Hedge "liked it so well" and engages with the poem's imagery, describing a Lessing engraving depicting the poem's mourning royal couple.

1846—

Modern British Poets

“Modern British Poets”

quoted · read

“What says the benign Uhland ?”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p88

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p88; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

Translations from German

pp. 23–27

excerpted · readManuscript page

“The severest, noblest toils bring not to the human breast such free pleasure as nature lavishes with a single gift.' — Goethe.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Translations from German." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086; Box 5 (101).

Inferred Fuller labels the translation 'Vorklage to Goethe's Gedichte' on p. 26, naming the section heading of the collected Gedichte rather than a standalone poem title. First (p. 23), three aphoristic verse fragments labeled 'Goethe' at the end of each — these are miscellaneous Gedichte or epigrams from Goethe's collected verse.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p209

excerpted · quoted · read

“lines which I translate from the German of Uhland. They are entitled 'Justification.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.

Margaret Fuller's engagement with Ludwig Uhland's "Rechtfertigung" (Justification) is evidenced in her translation of the poem, indicated by her April 1836 letter where she attributes the lines to Uhland and notes the title.