Author
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was the dominant literary influence on Margaret Fuller. She studied him intensively from 1832, translated Eckermann’s record of his conversations into English — the first English edition (1839) — and wrote her most sustained critical essay on his work. Goethe remained a living presence throughout her writing life, from her earliest German studies to her final dispatches from Rome — present across every phase of her writing life: translated, excerpted, analyzed, and quoted.
An unwritten biography
Margaret Fuller was preparing to write a biography of Goethe. Twenty manuscript documents survive — three of them directly planning the biography (a plan and two sets of working notes), alongside her translation of Eckermann’s Conversations, her critical essay in Life Without and Life Within, and reading notebooks and reflections.
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 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“within the year she had read the most important works of Goethe and Schiller, with the writings of Tieck, Korner, Bichter, and Novalis”
Mem-3 Reminiscences of Edna Cheney · She began the study of German in 1832, and in three months acquired the command of the language, so that within the year
Memoir ties reading of Goethe to the specific year following her 1832 German studies, a datable claim.
“It pains one to part with Ottilia- I wish we could learn books as we do pieces of musick”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [mid-August? 1832]
Personal reaction to parting with a specific character (Ottilia) documents having read/finished the novel.
“Within the year, she had read Goethe's Faust, Tasso, Iphigenia, Hermann and Dorothea, Elective Affinities, and Memoirs”
Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · within the year [1832]
Specific dated memoir claim listing exact Goethe works Fuller read 'within the year' (1832).
Books Emerson sent or offered, his secondhand reports, and his own references — never counted in Fuller’s totals.
Emerson: “nothing at the bookshops but Werter & Cato by Plutarch”
Bookshop report · Rusk page unrecovered
Shows shared literary currency. Exact day and Rusk page unrecovered.
Emerson: “very charming it is”
Emerson's own reading · Myerson, letter of September 1838 (page locator provisional)
Emerson's own reading.
1832–1836
Discovery — reads Faust, Tasso, Iphigenie, Elective Affinities, Wilhelm Meister, Dichtung und Wahrheit. Begins translating Tasso.
1836–1839
Translation — completes Eckermann. Manuscripts fill with transcriptions, commentary, working translations.
1840–1844
Critical work — writes the major essay for Life Without and Life Within. Goethe appears in Woman in the Nineteenth Century as a model of androgynous genius. Plans and drafts notes for a biography.
1844–1850
Living reference — Goethe internalized. Invoked in the Italian letters as a touchstone, almost without comment.
“Faust contains the great idea of his life, as indeed there is but one great poetic idea possible to man — the progress of a soul through the various forms of existence. Faust, had it been completed in the spirit in which it was begun, would have been the Divina Commedia of its age.”
“I have thought much whether Goethe did well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his existence. From that era dates his being as a Weltweise; the heroic element vanished irrecoverably from his character; he became an Epicurean and a Realist; plucking flowers and hammering stones instead of loving and dying.”
“Not even in Shakspeare have I so felt the organic completeness.”
“I turn to the Iphigenia — a work beyond the possibility of negation.”
“The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister.”
“We respect it, accept, all but love it.”
Translated by Fuller
Analyzed in depth
Further works documented in the catalogue
Transcribed from originals at Houghton Library, Harvard, and the Boston Public Library. The manuscripts are not supplementary — they are the evidence.
Planning a biography
Critical essays and reflections
Reading notebooks
Journals
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“Again, fair images, ye flutter near … The Past—the Past alone, seems true to me! / Goethe.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Reading Notebook 1825–1827." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
The translator is not identified.
“I have felt that so much lately in reading his lyrick poems- I am enchanted while I read; he comprehends every feeling I ever had so perfectly, expresses it so beautifully...”
Inferred Fuller explicitly states she is "reading his lyrick poems" and "persevere in reading the great sage some part of every day," a clear active-reading signal with sustained engagement; she describes shutting the book and feeling she has "lost my personal identity," with the title inferred as the lyric poetry section of Goethe's collected works.
“I send you the close of my translation which I would like to have you read- I have left out some of the Harp's Swedenborgian remarks; I found it so difficult to English them”
Inferred Fuller says she is sending the close of "my translation" and mentions "the Harp's Swedenborgian remarks"; Hudspeth identified the Harp as one of the "Harfenspieler" (Harper) poems in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, with the Harper as a central character whose mystical, guilt-laden songs carry Swedenborgian-like thought, and Fuller is translating passages from this novel.
“Also two of your German books- It pains one to part with Ottilia- I wish we could learn books as we do pieces of musick...”
Inferred She is returning Clarke's copy and displays deep affectionate engagement with the character, as Hudspeth identified.
“If you have translated more from Hermann and Dorothea, will you send it me?”
Inferred Fuller names Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea directly and asks Clarke for more of his translation of this epic poem about a bourgeois German family during the French Revolutionary Wars.
“-Then it is a relief after feeling the immense superiority of Goethe.”
Inferred Fuller refers to Goethe as "the great sage" whose comprehensiveness overwhelms her after reading Novalis, contrasting their approaches without naming a specific work; context from another letter suggests she was reading Goethe's lyric poems.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
“I am thinking how I omitted to talk a volume to you about the 'Elective Affinities.' Now I shall never say half of it, for which I, on my own account, am sorry.”
“Consider it, I pray you, as the 'nearest duty' to answer my questions”
Inferred Hudspeth identified Fuller's phrase "nearest duty" to Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, where a wandering pedestrian tells Wilhelm "Das Sicherste bleibt immer, nur das Nächste zu tun," rendered by Carlyle as "The safe plan is, always simply to do the task that lies nearest us" in Carlyle's ranslation.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“It seems to me as if the mind of Goethe had embraced the universe. I have felt this lately, in reading his lyric poems. I am enchanted while I read.”
Fuller, Margaret. Letter 77 ([ca. 1 August 1832]). In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817-1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Fuller names Goethe and specifies 'his lyric poems.' Hudspeth identified the edition as Goethes Werke: Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1827–30), with volume 3 containing the 'Lyrisches.' Fuller describes her current reading practice ('I persevere in reading the great sage, some part of every day') and comments extensively on how Goethe's work causes her to lose her personal identity.
“Goethe himself is the highest instance how consistent are the utmost delicacy of definition and individuality of expression with perfect simplicity of style.”
Inferred Fuller invokes Goethe as "the highest instance how consistent are the utmost delicacy of definition and individuality of expression with perfect simplicity of style," presenting a critical literary judgment based on her extensive reading though no specific work is named.
“I have read no German except Faust which I take every sunny noon to a wood about a quarter of a mile from the house and the birds and wind rustling their long-stepping feet over the thick carpet of last year's dried oak-leaves do their best to make me feel at home...”
“But you have given Miss Kemble your translation of Geschwister and passed me by.”
Inferred Fuller names Goethe's one-act play Die Geschwister (The Siblings) through Clarke's translation, playfully complaining that Clarke gave it to Fanny Kemble rather than to her; Hudspeth identified Clarke had his translation privately printed.
“I keep thinking of Ottilia's last boating expedition but natheless we are going.”
Inferred Fuller alludes to the tragic boating scene from Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften, in which Ottilie accidentally drowns Eduard and Charlotte's child while rowing across the lake, using "Ottilia" to invoke "her last boating expedition" as a warning omen before her own river outing; Hudspeth identified this identification.
“I have read nothing (to signify) except Goethe's Campagne in Frankreich- Have you looked through it and do you remember his intercourse with the Wertherian Plessing- That tale pained me exceedingly- We cry Help- help and there is no Help- in man at least.”
“Three or four afternoons I have passed very happily at my beloved haunt in the wood reading Goethe's 'second residence in Rome' - your pencilmarks show that you have been before me.”
Hudspeth identified this refers to part 3 of Die italienische Reise, published in 1829, and identifies its emotional effect on Fuller: an earnest desire to live with an engrossing object of pursuit.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
“From Goethe / To a golden heart which I wore round / my neck.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1833–1834." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (4); Box 5 (83).
Inferred The title is Inferred because Fuller gives only the English paraphrase title ‘To a golden heart which I wore round my neck’, not the German canonical title.
Poem attributed to ‘Goethe’ explicitly in the manuscript header; content matches his Lili-cycle poem ‘An ein goldenes Herz, das er am Halse trug’ (To a Golden Heart that He Wore at his Neck), addressed to Lili Schönemann (written c. 1775). Fuller names Lili explicitly in the transcription.
“A Scott, a Goethe would neither talk out nor write down the reflections suggested by what the day had brought, they would be transfused into new works.”
Fuller, Margaret. "General Reading Notes." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“I have read nothing,—to signify,—except Goethe’s ‘Campagne in Frankreich.’ Have you looked through it, and do you remember his intercourse with the Wertherian Plessing?”
“But his conduct to Plessing and Ohlenschlager shows that to him, also, an appeal would have been vain.”
Inferred Fuller extends her reading of Goethe's autobiographical writings to discuss his conduct toward both Plessing and Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, a Danish writer who met Goethe multiple times between 1805 and 1809.
Fuller, Margaret. Letter 84 ([ca. 20 May 1833]). In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817-1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“I have with me those works of Goethe which I have not read and am now perusing Kunst and Alterthum and Campagne in Frankreich.”
The same sentence also names Campagne in Frankreich 1792 [Campaign in France]. Counted as one engagement.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“What fault do you find with Goethe's lyricks— Each one gives a mood of the mind with marked expression and intense and beautiful language— Does not the perusal of them rouse your imagination and make you think or in some cases rouse you to unexpected passion— What would you have?”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Mr.— says the Wanderjahre is "wise." It must be presumed so; and yet one is not satisfied.”
“I was perfectly so with my manner of interpreting the Lehrjahre; but this sequel keeps jerking my clue, and threatens to break it.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Goethe!! says live a ] retired as we will we must soon become either d[ ] creditors.”
“the hist and critical works of Goethe and Schiller”
Inferred Fuller names 'the hist and critical works of Goethe' as part of her winter study course, likely including Dichtung und Wahrheit, essays on art and literature, and possibly scientific writings.
Fuller, Margaret. "To Amelia Greenwood, 10 March 1834." In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817–1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth, 201–202. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“I have just been reading Goethe's Lebensregel.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
The editors identify this as Goethe's poetic rule of life, found within his collected works.
“I have with me the works of Goethe ... am now engaged upon 'Kunst and Alterthum”
“The great Goethe hid thus in Italy; 'Then,' said he, 'I did indeed feel alone, — when no former friend could form an idea where I was.”
Inferred She alludes to Goethe's experience of leaving his homeland for Italy, quoting his sentiment: "Then, said he, 'I did indeed feel alone, — when no former friend could form an idea where I was.'" This passage evokes the profound isolation and transformative self-discovery often associated with the 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.
“the Wanderjahre is 'wise.' It must be presumed so; and yet one is not satisfied.”
“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names... the wise Makaria, observing my kindred the stars”
“The "Titan" of Richter, the "Wanderjahre" of Goethe, the Elena of Taylor, the pictures of Turner, had not prepared me for the visions of beauty that daily entranced the eyes and heart in those regions.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
“I have read nothing, — to signify, — except Goethe's 'Campagne in Frankreich.' Have you looked through it, and do you remember his intercourse with the Wertherian Plessing?”
She references the author's interactions with specific figures, noting his encounter with "the Wertherian Plessing" and also with "Ohlenschlager." Fuller's direct mention of the title and its contents allows for the confident identification of this work within her reading.
“am now engaged upon 'Kunst and Alterthum,' and 'Campagne in Trankreich.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
“As to the Dæmoniacal, I know not that I can say to you anything more precise than you find from Goethe. There are no precise terms for such thoughts.”
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 Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's concept of the "Dæmoniacal," drawn from his writings and suggesting readers seek further precision "from Goethe." While she does not cite a specific text, this reference is readily identifiable as pertaining to Goethe's discussions of das Dämonische, found prominently in his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, and his Conversations with Eckermann.
“These words of Goethe, which I have placed among the mottos at the beginning of this chapter, were written by Margaret on the first page of a richly gilt and bound blank book, which she gave to me, in 1832, for a private journal.”
Inferred This entry documents a quotation by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, transcribed by Margaret Fuller into a gilt-bound journal gifted to James Freeman Clarke in 1832. While the specific text of the quotation is not provided, Clarke's editorial notes indicate that Fuller chose these "words of Goethe" as a motto for the journal.
This entry documents a quotation by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, transcribed by Margaret Fuller into a gilt-bound journal gifted to James Freeman Clarke in 1832.
“Within the year, she had read Goethe's Faust, Tasso, Iphigenia, Hermann and Dorothea, Elective Affinities, and Memoirs”
“1832. — I am thinking how I omitted to talk a volume to you about the 'Elective Affinities.' Now I shall never say half of it...”
“Within the year, she had read Goethe's Faust, Tasso, Iphigenia, Hermann and Dorothea, Elective Affinities, and Memoirs...”
“I feel this lately, in reading his lyric poems. I am enchanted while I read.”
“I solace my soul with Goethe, and follow his guidance into realms of the 'Wahren, Guten, und Schonen.”
Inferred In an April 1833 letter, Margaret Fuller expresses her deep personal connection to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's writings, stating, "I solace my soul with Goethe, and follow his guidance into realms of the 'Wahren, Guten, und Schonen.'" While no specific work is named, Fuller's invocation of these German terms for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty suggests a broad engagement with Goethe's philosophical and aesthetic ideals as a source of comfort and inspiration.
“the wise uncle in Wilhelm Meister”
“I was perfectly so with my manner of interpreting the Lehrjahre”
“Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, Goetz von Berlichingen, Iphigenia, first part of Faust”
“and Clavigo”
“His views of Ophelia, however, are unspeakably more just than are those of Serlo in Wilhelm Meister.”
“Henry Hedge, who had long been her friend, told me of her genius and studies, and loaned me her manuscript translation of Goethe's Tasso.”
“enjoyed with him his proud reception... of Goethe.”
Inferred In this passage, Margaret Fuller's engagement with the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is noted through an account of her shared reading with a contemporary. Emerson highlights Goethe as a figure Fuller explicitly valued, placing him alongside Dante and Petrarch as poets who provided "high portraits" that gratified her search for kindred spirits.
“Dec. 12, 1843. — When Goethe received a letter from Zelter, with a handsome superscription, he said, 'Lay that aside; it is Zelter's true handwriting.”
Inferred In her journal entry of December 12, 1843, Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Briefe an Zelter (Letters to Zelter), a posthumously published collection of correspondence. Fuller cites Goethe's reflection on how a "daemon" influences an individual's handwriting, particularly noting his appreciation for Zelter's "true handwriting" as an instance where adverse influences were overcome.
“which contained Margaret's translation of Goethe's 'Prometheus.”
This archive entry identifies an instance of Margaret Fuller engaging with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Prometheus." Fuller presented her own translation of this celebrated ode, originally authored by Goethe around 1772-74 and first published in 1789, within an 1838 letter to a correspondent, as noted by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names... Poor Tasso in the play offered his love and service too officiously to all.”
“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names... poor Mignon! fear not the transition through death”
Inferred Margaret Fuller references the character Mignon from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), seeing in the figure a parallel to her own suffering. fear not the transition through death," suggesting an empathetic understanding of Mignon's plight and potentially projecting her own anxieties onto the character.
“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names.”
This scholarly archive identifies the play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, recognizing its inclusion in a significant literary constellation for Fuller.
“In the winter of 1843-4, the general subject was "Education." Culture, Ignorance, Vanity, Prudence, Patience, and Health, appear to have been the titles of conversations, in which wide digressions, and much autobiographic illustration, with episodes on War, Bonaparte, Goethe, and Spinoza, were mingled.”
Inferred In the winter of 1843-4, Margaret Fuller's conversations explored the broad theme of Education, incorporating discussions on figures such as Goethe. While no specific work by Goethe is named in the surviving record, his writings and life were evidently a subject of engagement within Fuller's intellectual circle.
“Has not ——— vied, in her deeds of love, with "my Cid," and the holy Ottilia?”
Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities) by referencing its famously saintly character, Ottilia. Fuller implicitly elevates this character alongside the legendary "my Cid" as exemplars of devoted action.
“I do not like Bettina for publishing her heart, and am ready to repeat to her Serlo's reproof to Aurelia.”
Inferred This entry identifies Friedrich von Matthisson's Gedichte (Poems), a collection Fuller engages with to critique the self-published sentimentality of her contemporary, Bettina von Arnim.
“I have realized in these last days the thought of Goethe, — 'He who would in loneliness live, ah! he is soon alone. Each one loves, each one lives, and leaves him to his pain.”
Inferred Each one loves, each one lives, and leaves him to his pain.'" This passage, identified by the editors with the Harfner's song "Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt," highlights Fuller's keen awareness of the novel's themes as she contemplates the human need for connection.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.