Folklore & Mythology Figure
Documented in Fuller’s letters, manuscripts, memoirs
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“I took up the Grecian mythology as a good means of opening a vista to the plain I sought and the topics were pursued thus. Jupiter — Creative Energy, Will. Apollo — Genius.”
L-2 [Letter 250, 21 January 1840, To Sarah Helen Whitman]
“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.
“You, in your turn, have patience with the Psyche, and draw the best music you can from the Lyre.”
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 author and title are inferred because Fuller cites only the figure.
“Under the head of Venus, in the fifth conversation, the story of Cupid and Psyche was told with fitting beauty, by Margaret; and many fine conjectural interpretations suggested from all parts of the room.”
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.
“This fable of Cupid and Psyche is almost as fine as the Endymion. These little Cupids carrying the trophies are infinitely graceful and playful. … Of brides Psyche is most bridal, Love.”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Michelangelo and Raphael." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Inferred Fuller discusses Raphael's fresco cycle of 'this fable of Cupid and Psyche' (p19 onward), analyzing the narrative scenes depicted. The classical literary source for the Cupid-and-Psyche story as Fuller would have encountered it is Apuleius's Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Books IV.28–VI.24. The classical literary source is Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Books IV–VI.