Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Folklore & Mythology Book

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

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

Related

Entities
Aphrodite (Venus) · Apollo · Demeter (Ceres) · Dionysus (Bacchus) · Heracles (Hercules) · Isis · Medea · Zeus (Jupiter)
Authors
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) · Lucius Apuleius

Representative documentary evidence

1841—

Letter to William H. Channing

p223
read
“when you see the oxen in the surf, you lose all faith in the story of Europa, as the gay waves tumble in on their lazy sides.”

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

Inferred Fuller invokes the myth of Zeus and Europa: 'you lose all faith in the story of Europa, as the gay waves tumble in on their lazy sides.' Fuller is watching oxen in the surf, saying the oxen in the surf undermine the myth's plausibility ('you lose all faith in the story of Europa').

1841—

Genesis of the Greek Gods

pp12–14
analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page
“I had in my mind the apparition of Isis, as described by Apuleius [...] 'Behold I saw in a dream a divine form emerging from the middle of the sea and raising a countenance venerable even to the Gods themselves [...] Queen Isis.' — Taylor's trans.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Genesis of the Greek Gods." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.

1843—

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843

analyzed · quoted · read6 selected passages
“I thought that Bacchic energy of yours was long since repressed.”

Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.

“the hamadryads had not time to make their plaints heard”

Inferred Fuller invokes hamadryads in a pastoral-elegiac tone, lamenting the rapid felling of trees. Fuller alludes to 'hamadryads' ? tree nymphs in Greek mythology who were bound to specific trees and cried out when those trees were cut.

“the worker is a true Midas to the gold he makes”

Inferred Fuller alludes to 'Midas' ? the legendary king whose touch turned everything to gold.

“but believe it will have Medea's virtue, and reproduce them in the form of new intellectual growths”

Inferred alluding to Medea's cauldron, which in the myth could restore youth (she restored Aeson's youth for Jason, and later deceived Pelias's daughters into killing him).

“I think it springs from the blood of the Indians, as the hyacinth did from that of Apollo's darling.”

Inferred Fuller alludes to the Greek myth of Hyacinthus (Hyakinthos), a young Spartan prince beloved by Apollo.

“This is precisely the division of functions made by Ovid, as the father sees Hercules perishing on the funeral pyre. "Nec nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem Sentiet.”

Inferred Fuller names Ovid explicitly and quotes three lines of Latin. The passage comes from Book IX of the Metamorphoses (lines 249-251), where Jupiter addresses Juno about the immortal part of Hercules that will not be consumed by fire on the pyre.

Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.

1844—

B-3-02 Chapter II

quoted
“_J_. From water Venus was born, what more would you have? It is the mother of Beauty, the girdle of earth, and the marriage of nations.”

B-3-02 Chapter II

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p94–95
analyzed · read
“I sometimes inly say Psyche was but a mortal woman, yet as the bride of Love, she became a daughter of the Gods too.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Inferred Fuller alludes to Psyche self-referentially, comparing her own initiation through Nathan to Psyche's transformation from mortal woman to immortal "daughter of the gods" after marrying Cupid and receiving Jupiter's ambrosia.

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Met. IX.239–272
excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read3 selected passages
“Siquis tam^n, Hercule, siquis / Forte Deo doliturus erit, data prsemia nollet, / Sed meruisse dari sciet, invitus que probabit, / Assensere Dei.”
“Nic nisi materna Vulcanum parte potentem. / Sentiet.”

Fuller explicitly identifies this as 'that noble passage of Ovid, already quoted' — Jupiter's speech at Hercules' funeral pyre.

“Apparition of the goddess Isis to her votary, from Apuleius. [...] Scarcely had I closed my eyes, when behold (I saw in a dream) a divine form emerging from the middle of the sea...”

Explicitly attributed to Apuleius.

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

1850—

L-2 [Letter 934, undated, To Charles K. Newcomb]

quoted
“I looked on the sculptures of the sitting Ceres and Proserpine the "great goddesses," and knew that time would come with me, when I would not wish to rise from my seat or detain any thing.”

L-2 [Letter 934, undated, To Charles K. Newcomb]

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p18
analyzed · read
“Ovid gave me not Rome, nor himself, but a view into the enchanted gardens of the Greek mythology. This path I followed, have been following ever since”

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 In this passage, Margaret Fuller reflects on her formative encounter with Ovid, describing his work as providing her with "a view into the enchanted gardens of the Greek mythology." While not naming a specific title, editors infer that Fuller refers to Ovid's Metamorphoses, as this epic poem is the principal source of classical mythology for English-language readers and aligns with her description of discovering mythological worlds.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Howe-1883

quoted
“in Ovid, the first glimpse of a mythology which carried her to the Greek Olympus”

Howe-1883

n.d.—

L-2 [Letter 953, undated, To unknown]

quoted
“Though art but a rough and blurred sketch of the Phoenix, of the Poet, yet refuse to be aught else and the true beauty shall yet glow out in fulness of life.”

L-2 [Letter 953, undated, To unknown]

n.d.—

On Friendship

quotedManuscript page
“in the figures on antique gems and bas-reliefs of meetings between the gods, it is yours I find, by far they present me another with the fall flower of being rather than grow together.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Friendship." Unbound pages, undated. Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 96.

n.d.—

Notebook: Sir Thomas Browne

p. 64
mentionedManuscript page
“a man may be twice a child before the days of dotage, and stand in need of Aeson's bath before threescore”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Sir Thomas Browne." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (87); Box 6 (87).

Inferred Browne alludes to 'Aeson's bath' — Medea's magical rejuvenation of the aged Aeson (father of Jason) by draining his blood and replacing it with a herbal brew, rendering him young again.