Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Isis

Folklore & Mythology Figure

Documented in Fuller’s letters, books, manuscripts, memoirs

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

Related

Entities
Artemis (Diana) · Osiris
Authors
Plutarch · Lucius Apuleius

Representative documentary evidence

1840—

Letter to William H. Channing(?)

p169
analyzed · read
“How finely it harmonizes with all legends of Isis, Diana, &c!”

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

Inferred Fuller mentions 'Isis, Diana, &c' by name in connection with the yucca flower's moonlight beauty — these are named mythological figures. The principal literary sources for the form Fuller would have known are Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride (for Isis) and classical sources on Diana/Selene.

1843—

On Beethoven

p4, p5
excerpted · analyzed · readManuscript page
“Extract made by Taylor from Plutarch's Isis and Osiris with regard to the Sistrum.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Beethoven." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

p40
analyzed · read
“the Egyptian Isis, of divine wisdom never yet surpassed.”

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

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p160
read
“By the way, I wish much I had told you the story of Isis and Osiris. It is like your religion. But a time may come.”

Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

Inferred The phrase "It is like your religion" alludes to Nathan's Jewish faith, suggesting a parallel between Egyptian death-and-resurrection mythology and Jewish theological themes.

1847—

L-2 [Letter 683, October 1847, To William James Linton]

quoted
“The Isis of a fair regenerate earth”

L-2 [Letter 683, October 1847, To William James Linton]

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p164
analyzed · read
“Her general idea was, that, upon the Earth-worship and Sabaeanism of earlier ages, the Grecian genius acted to humanize and idealize, but, still, with some regard to the original principle.”

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 Identification rationale not yet recorded.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Poems

pp15–16
readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“So in Egyptian clime / Grows an Isis, calm, sublime / Blue-black is her robe of night / But blazoned o'er with points of light.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Poems." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.

Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.