Folklore & Mythology Figure
Documented in Fuller’s letters, books, manuscripts
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“Tantalus-like, he makes this world a Tartarus, or, like Hercules, rises in fires to heaven [...] Thoas urges his suit undismayed by the fate that hangs over the race of Tantalus.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p29-54
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“the brutal attacks of wicked men, and the shrewd comments of worldly ones, no less than the Tantalus cup filled for one another by two, who really meet, — if not enough.”
Inferred This entry alludes to Tantalus, a son of Zeus in Greek mythology, who was condemned in Hades to suffer eternal hunger and thirst, with fruit and water forever beyond his reach.
“I wish you would ask me to explain the difference, the Greeks made between the moon as Hecate and as Diana, and the allusions to the girdle of Apollo, and at the conclusion — to Tantalus; these are beautiful things in the Greek mythology, which you will appreciate.”
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.
“I should always suffer the pain of Tantalus thinking of Rome, if I could not see it more thoroughly than I have as yet even begun to”
L-2 [Letter 670, 1 July 1847, To Richard F. Fuller]
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“Apollo's lustre rays the zodiac thought, / In Leo regal, as in Virgo pure ... And the Sun sings all on his ray-strung lyre. ... For thee, my Apollo, / The girdle I weave ... ...”
Fuller, Margaret. "Poems." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“I sit like Tantalus at the banquet, I am not content to see the Gods. I would be one, else even nectar and ambrosia fall on the palate. I sympathize with the fallen”
Fuller, Margaret. "Moonlight." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“p6: 'The poetical world which lies ever / about us... exhibited in the symbols of / the Greek mythology.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notes toward The Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Inferred Fuller explicitly names Tantalus (p.12) and discusses Greek mythology and the 'titanic nature' as a framework for understanding Goethe's character.