Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, and manuscripts (1844–1846). 13 distinct works are named, most often in Review., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement
ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in
Letters · Books · Essays · Manuscripts
Documented
1844–1846

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 Ludwig van Beethoven’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

  • undatedBeethoven's letters to the Immortal Beloved (Julia)Demonstrated

    “Beethoven's three love letters to Julia. (from a bathing place in Hungary) 6th July morning. My angel, my all, my (self)...”

    Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers)

    A substantial verbatim excerpt of Beethoven's love letter is copied out at length.

  • undatedbiography/lifeAttested

    “When I read Beethoven's life, I said, 'I will never repine.”

    Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

    Explicit first-person statement 'When I read Beethoven's life, I said...'.

  • undatedLetter to Bettina BrentanoDemonstrated

    “Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano, Toplitz, 1812. 'Kings and princes can indeed make professors...”

    Life Without and Life Within (essays)

    Presented as an 'extract from a letter' of a historical document reproduced at length, implying substantial verbatim excerpting.

In Fuller’s words

“No tragedy is deeper than the perusal of his letters to the young man, so brief and so significant, so stern and so tender. The joy and love at every sign of goodness, the profound indignation at failure and falsehood, the power of forgiving but not of excusing, the sentiment of the true value of life, so rocky calm, that with all its height it never seems exalted, make these letters a biblical chapter in the protest of modern days against the backslidings of the multitude.”
Letters · Lives of the Great Composers · 1846

When Fuller engaged with Ludwig van Beethoven

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist
V. New York8records
VI. Europe12records
✦. Memoirs (1852)1record
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850

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

Beethoven in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1844—

The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. III: 1842-1844

letter_0499.txt
analyzed · read
“I think Beethoven was just what he needed to be at that period of his experience. You ask if I can conceive of orchestral music greater than his.”

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

Inferred No work is named. Fuller refers to Ludwig van Beethoven — “I think Beethoven was just what he needed to be at that period of his experience. You ask if I can conceive of orchestral music greater than his.” — and the passage does not identify a specific writing.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

Letter XXV, p.68
quoted · read
“And yet," said Beethoven at such a time, " there is the god-like in man!”

Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

Inferred Only a short quoted aphorism attributed to Beethoven, not a sustained excerpt.

1845—

Music in New York.

“Music in New York.”
mentioned2 selected passages
“We had so long been intoxicated and upborne by the passions and prolonged inspirations of that god of modern music, Beethoven”
“We are very desirous to hear Beethoven’s Seventh and Fifth Symphonies from this orchestra, also some music from Mozart.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Music in New York." New-York Daily Tribune, 18 January 1845.

1845—

Review.

“Review.”
quoted · read8 selected passages
“On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven’s Sonate pathetique.”
“I seized upon the pianoforte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and delight such as no other composer afforded me.”
“All the ‘initiated’ must be interested in the striking fact which occurred respecting one of Beethoven’s last solo-Sonatas (in B major, with the great fugue Op. 106)”
“I could not converse with you and yours with that peace mind which I could have desired, for the late wretched altercation was hovering before me, showing me my own despicable conduct.”
“I had been wrought into this burst of passion by many an unpleasant circumstance of an earlier date. I have the gift of concealing and restraining my irritability on many subjects”
“My compositions are well paid, and I may say I have more orders than I can well execute; six or seven publishers and more being ready to take any of my works”
“This beautiful country of mine, what was my lot in it? The hope of a happy futurity. This might now be realized if I were freed from my affliction.”
“Let any man, disposed to complain of his own ills, read the “Will” of Beethoven; and see if he dares speak of himself above a whisper, after.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Review." New-York Daily Tribune, 7 February 1845.

1846—

Music.

“Music.”
mentioned
“We must all have felt it to be a privilege of priceless value, that we are born in an age, through which are transmitted the inspirations of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven”

Fuller, Margaret. "Music." New-York Daily Tribune, 31 January 1846. · 31 January 1846

1846—

‘Darkness Visible.’

“‘Darkness Visible.’”
mentioned
“repeating the cant and drivel of the Harbinger about Dante and Beethoven, or praising the chaste ‘creations’ of that most chaste and ‘spiritual’ creature, George Sand.”

Fuller, Margaret. "‘Darkness Visible.’." New-York Daily Tribune, 10 March 1846. · 10 March 1846

1846—

Dolores. By Harro Harring.

“Dolores. By Harro Harring.”
mentioned
“We see the poet, like Beethoven, is not inclined to take off his hat to a King, merely as King”

Fuller, Margaret. "Dolores. By Harro Harring." New-York Daily Tribune, 25 April 1846. · 25 April 1846

1846—

Mr. Fontana’s Concert.

“Mr. Fontana’s Concert.”
mentioned
“Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, each in a different way, actually fulfilled vast desires of the soul”

Fuller, Margaret. "Mr. Fontana’s Concert." New-York Daily Tribune, 3 January 1846. · 3 January 1846

1846—

Philharmonic Concert.

“Philharmonic Concert.”
analyzed · read
“Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, all in one evening! Yet it was not too good; we felt no want of alloy to make the gold pass current”

Fuller, Margaret. "Philharmonic Concert." New-York Daily Tribune, 28 April 1846. · 28 April 1846

1846—

Philharmonic Concert.

“Philharmonic Concert.”
mentioned2 selected passages
“The Fifth Symphony of Beethoven is well know as one of the sublimest expressions of genius ever vouchsafed to man.”
“We wish the Society would give the Pastoral Symphony.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Philharmonic Concert." New-York Daily Tribune, 20 January 1846.

1846—

The Grand Festival Concert at Castle Garden.

“The Grand Festival Concert at Castle Garden.”
mentioned
“Beethoven’s Symphony then came to entrance us. At this first time of hearing, it overshadowed like a tower the wandering mind”

Fuller, Margaret. "The Grand Festival Concert at Castle Garden." New-York Daily Tribune, 22 May 1846. · 22 May 1846

1846—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . IV.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . IV.”
mentioned
“Monuments that have risen from the same ideas and in such quick succession, to Schiller, to Goethe, to Beethoven and to Scott”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . IV." New-York Daily Tribune, 5 November 1846. · 5 November 1846

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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

1843—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

Mem-2-04, line 9721
analyzed
“Beethoven's Symphony was the only right thing the city of the Puritans had for her”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 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.

n.d.—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

Mem-2-07b, line 19195
analyzed · read2 selected passages
“above all, Beethoven's seventh symphony. What majesty! what depth!”
“she treated, in turn, Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine and the Romaic Ballads”

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