Folklore & Mythology Figure
Documented in Fuller’s letters, books, notebooks, manuscripts, memoirs
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
“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”
L-2 [Letter 239, 25 November 1839, To unknown]
“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]
“Hercules I fancy when in the fire which so pleased his father Jove, could not have touched the cup, though filled with nectar by Hebe his bride.”
L-2 [Letter 295, 24 January 1841, To Caroline Sturgis]
“when you see the oxen in the surf, you lose all faith in the story of Europa, as the gay waves tumble in on their lazy sides.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller invokes the myth of Zeus and Europa: 'you lose all faith in the story of Europa, as the gay waves tumble in on their lazy sides.' Fuller is watching oxen in the surf, saying the oxen in the surf undermine the myth's plausibility ('you lose all faith in the story of Europa').
“Upon the rocky mountain stood the boy, / A goblet of pure water in his hand [...] I've filled the vase which our Olympian king / Upon my care for his sole use bestowed [...] Thy fellow bondsman in a royal cause [...] Which binds our dim fates to the throne of Jove.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Ganymede to His Eagle." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 3, Folder: 134.
Inferred Identification rationale not yet recorded.
“Here I thought of, or rather saw, what the Greek expresses under the form of Jove's darling, Ganymede, and the following stanzas took form.”
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
Inferred Fuller explicitly names Ganymede as the Greek mythological figure inspiring her poem 'Ganymede to His Eagle.' She identifies him as 'Jove's darling.' The myth appears first in Homer's Iliad and was also extensively in Pindar, Virgil, and other classical authors.
“GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE, / SUGGESTED BY A WORK OF THORWALDSEN'S.”
B-3-03 Chapter III
“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!”
L-2 [Letter 474, July 1844, To Ralph Waldo Emerson]
“Miss Fuller had proposed the Grecian Mythology as the subject of the first conversations [...] He saw the oreads, naiads, nereids [...] Prometheus was made the type of Pure Reason; Jupiter, of Will; Juno, the passive side of the same, or Obstinacy; Minerva, Intellectual Power, Practical Reason; Mercury, Executive Power, Understanding; Apollo was Genius, the Sun; Bacchus was Geniality, the Earth's answer.”
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.
“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.
“This from the author of the / Jupiter symphony, / the Don Giovanni and / the Requiem.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Artists." Notebook, undated. Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (94); Box 6.
“De Quincey's / Jupiter Olympus”
Fuller, Margaret. "Wordsworth's Greece and Notes on Greek Myth." Unbound Pages, undated. Houghton Library, Harvard University.