Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Roman

Folklore & Mythology Tradition

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

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

Related

Entities
Aphrodite (Venus) · Apollo · Artemis (Diana) · Athena (Minerva) · Demeter (Ceres) · Dionysus (Bacchus) · Heracles (Hercules) · Hermes (Mercury) · Narcissus

Representative documentary evidence

1819—

Letter to Ellen Kilshaw

read
“As the slow messenger Mercury will soon bend his course toward England [...] (whether he is faithful I know not but I know he is not nearly as swift as his namesake the messenger of the gods)”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Fuller names the ship Mercury and then deliberately glosses the mythological reference: "not nearly as swift as his namesake the messenger of the gods." This demonstrates her knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology at age 9, identifying Mercury/Hermes by his divine epithet.

1839—

L-2 [Letter 227, 17 August 1839, To Elizabeth Hoar]

quoted
“you shall see with your eyes Venus, sea born, of whom before you have only dreamed and love ever after foam and sea weed better than the reddest roses—which celebrate the loss of Adonis.”

L-2 [Letter 227, 17 August 1839, To Elizabeth Hoar]

1840—

L-2 [Letter 255, 10 March 1840, To Frederic H. Hedge]

quoted
“Henry, I adjure you, in the name of all the Genii, Muses, Pegasus, Apollo, Pollio, Apollyon, ("and must I mention"--) to send me something good for this journal before the 1st May.”

L-2 [Letter 255, 10 March 1840, To Frederic H. Hedge]

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.

1840—

Defense of Anna

p2
readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“They do not think the Diana unnatural because her attitude is more free and noble than those they see every day.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Defense of Anna." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 90.

Inferred Fuller invokes 'Diana' as an image of noble, free, natural beauty — the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon, identified with the Greek Artemis.

1841—

The Dial

“The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain” · Vol. I, No. 3, January 1841, January 1841 · pp. 299?305
read
“the narcissus, so rapt in self-contemplation that it could not abide the usual changes of a life.”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.

Inferred Fuller alludes to the myth of Narcissus, the youth who fell in love with his own reflection and was transformed into the flower, using it within a broader conceit of flowers as former spirits.

1842—

L-2 [Letter 386, 21 August 1842, To Samuel G. Ward]

quoted
“Whence came that broad prudence which has made its nest in your brain, unless from Minerva herself?”

L-2 [Letter 386, 21 August 1842, To Samuel G. Ward]

1843—

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843

read5 selected passages
“a speech worthy of Shakspeare's Cloten, or the infant Mercury, up to everything from the cradle, as you please to take it.”

Inferred Fuller alludes to the myth of Mercury / Hermes as an infant prodigy thief: on the day of his birth he escaped his cradle, stole Apollo's cattle, and displayed universal cunning.

“I thought that Bacchic energy of yours was long since repressed.”

Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.

“So full-orbed Cynthia walks the skies, / Filling the earth with melodies, / Even so she condescends to kiss / Drowsy Endymions, coarse and dull, / Or fills our waking souls with bliss, / Making long nights too beautiful.”

Inferred Based on allusion to Cynthia (epithet of Selene/Artemis as full moon) and Endymion: the myth of the moon goddess who fell in love with the sleeping shepherd-prince of Mount Latmus. Cynthia descends nightly to kiss the eternally sleeping Endymion.

“This demoniacal impulse and power, which were ascribed to the Canidias of ancient superstition, may be seen subtly influencing the members of every-day society.”

Inferred Fuller uses 'Canidias' (plural) as a type ? a malevolent witch who injures through her presence ? drawn from 'ancient superstition.' Canidia is best known from Horace's “Epodes V and XVII” (c. 30 BCE), where she is a terrifying witch who uses magic for harm. The name became a literary type for the malevolent witch.

“For Henry gives the details of peculiar worship paid to the Great Turtle, and the oracles received from this extraordinary Apollo of the Indian Delphos.”

Inferred Fuller names 'Henry' as the source for details of Great Turtle worship at Mackinaw. Alexander Henry the Elder's Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories (1809) is the canonical fur-trade memoir that covers Fort Michilimackinac (1760s) and includes accounts of Ojibway religious practices including the Great Turtle oracle.

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

1844—

B-3-01 Chapter I

quoted
“unlike St. Francis in his mountain-bed, where none but the stars and rising sun ever saw him.”

B-3-01 Chapter I

1844—

B-3-02 Chapter II

quoted2 selected passages
“_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.”
“a Phocion among the Pawnees”

B-3-02 Chapter II

1844—

B-3-04 Chapter IV

quoted2 selected passages
“Untouched Diana, flitting dim, / While sings the wood its evening hymn.”
“Red Hecate stares--a boding sight!-- / Looks in, but never fills my room.”

B-3-04 Chapter IV

1844—

B-3-05 Chapter V

quoted4 selected passages
“Of such a color were the first red ones the world ever saw, when, says the legend, Venus flying to the assistance of Adonis, the rosebushes kept catching her to make her stay, and the drops of blood t”
“cease to love so well, and any Hercules will spin among thy maids, if thou wilt.”
“Not without deep significance was Apollo distinguished as being at once the God of poesy, of prophecy, and the medical art. Sleep-waking develops the powers of seeing, healing, and poesy.”
“The laurel had on her, as on most sleep-wakers, a distinguished magnetic effect.”

B-3-05 Chapter V