Folklore & Mythology Figure
Documented in Fuller’s letters, manuscripts
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“Farewell, O Grecian Sage, though not my Oedipus. [...] The Egyptians embodied the Sphynx as in body a lion, in countenance of calm human virgin beauty.”
L-2 [Letter 471, 13 July 1844, To Ralph Waldo Emerson]
“I must follow my own law, and bide my time, even if, like Oedipus, I should return a criminal, blind and outcast, to ask aid from the gods.”
L-2 [Letter 913, undated, To William H. Channing?]
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“One majestic figure of a grief like that of Oedipus.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Reflections: Emerson and Nature's Beauty." Unbound pages, undated. Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.
“The man rushes forth and is baffled, but returning home a blinded Oedipus, he finds in his breast the jewels of insight the callow birds of genius.”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Her Inner Nature and Genius." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 100.
Inferred The specific character and the detail of blindness as a path to inner vision are definitively Sophoclean. Both author and title inferred from the character name and its narrative context.