Folklore & Mythology Book
Documented in Fuller’s letters, books, journals, manuscripts
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“The Titans are the lower passions— They dared to attempt to scale with ladders those serene heights where dwell the gods.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller invokes the Titans as a mythological reference to represent "the lower passions," describing their failed attempt to scale the heights where the gods dwell.
“the first time was the genealogy of heaven and earth, then the will (Jupiter); the Understanding, (Mercury) Second, the celestial inspiration of genius, perception and transmission of divine law (Apol”
“we came to the wave, and the seashell it moulds; to Beauty, and Love, her parent her child”
L-2 [Letter 239, 25 November 1839, To unknown]
“I know the Titanic era must come ere long, but, oh Cary, do nothing to hasten it. Ward it off as long as possible by occupation.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller alludes to the Titanomachy through the Titans' failed assault on Olympus, invoking the classical mythological tradition found in Hesiod's Theogony.
“Motto from Hesiod_”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1840." Journal, 1840. Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (85); Box 5 (85).
“_J_. Nay, I only offered myself as a Triton, a boisterous Triton of the sounding shell”
Inferred Standard classical mythological allusions to Triton the sea-god,
“Remember that I am not yet divine, / Long years of service to the fatal Nine / Are yet to make a Delphian vigor mine.”
Inferred Fuller invokes the nine Muses of Greek tradition as 'the fatal Nine' in her poem 'Ganymede to His Eagle'.The phrase 'the fatal Nine' is the traditional designation for the nine Muses of Greek mythology (Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania), presided over by Apollo at Delphi.
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
“_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
“a Jove, under the masculine obligations of all-sufficinyness, who rubs his forehead in vain to induce the Minerva-bearing headach! Alas! his brain remains tranquil, his fancy daughterless!”
“Seek these mid the Tritons hoary, / Where an incalculable wave / Wrecks the warship tall and brave [...] Fit to be strung for strains of Delphian swell”
L-2 [Letter 474, July 1844, To Ralph Waldo Emerson]
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“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.
“Dian of the lonely life, / Hecate fed on gloom & strife / Phoebe on her throne of air / Only Leila's children fair. ...”
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“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 ... ...”
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
Fuller, Margaret. "Poems." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.