WorkGotthold Ephraim Lessing

Minna von Barnhelm

Minna von Barnhelm, oder Das Soldatenglück (Hamburg: Harrison, 1767)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) · 1767

InferredFuller quotes in German from Lessing's *Minna von Barnhelm*, Act 2, scene 1, an exchange between Franziska and Minna about Major von Tellheim's virtues.. She uses the quotation to contest the view that virtue arises only from the heart's overflow, demonstrating substantive literary engagement with the play. Fuller quotes directly from Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm, act 2, scene 1—the exchange between Franziska and Minna about Tellheim's virtues—in German, then critiques this sentiment as "not always true" in the context of discussing Socrates and genuine virtue; Hudspeth identified she and Clarke have been reading Lessing's dramas together.

AnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1833–1837

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

AttestedConfirmed reading1833–1836Evidence ↓

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had this work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

Dated
1833Minna von BarnhelmAttested
“E. Galeotti is good in the same way as Minna.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · June 1833
Same sentence as 1298, part of her continuous reading report on the returned Lessing plays.
1833Minna von BarnhelmDemonstrated
“F.—Von was fur Tugenden spricht er denn? Minna.—Er spricht von keiner; denn ihn fehlt keine.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 3 June 1833
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re245 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-02 l.4753-4754; tier B; same passage) — counted once here. Two-line German dialogue exchange quoted verbatim from Minna von Barnhelm, a sustained excerpt beyond a single phrase.
1836Minna von BarnhelmAttested
“Lessing's Nathan, Minna, Emilia Galeotti”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [ca. Summer 1837]
Continuing the same explicit reading list naming Minna.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed1record

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1833—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p201

analyzed · quoted · read

“For 'tis not always true what Lessing says and I myself once thought / "F. Bon was fur Tugenden spricht er denn? Minna. Er spricht von keiner; denn ihn fehlt keine.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Fuller quotes directly from Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm, act 2, scene 1—the exchange between Franziska and Minna about Tellheim's virtues—in German, then critiques this sentiment as "not always true" in the context of discussing Socrates and genuine virtue; Hudspeth identified she and Clarke have been reading Lessing's dramas together.

1833—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p183

analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“E. Galeotti is good in the same way as Minna.”

“For 't is not always true what Lessing says, and I, myself, once thought,— F.—Von was fur Tugenden spricht er denn? Minna.—Er spricht von keiner; denn ihn fehlt keine.”

Inferred Fuller quotes in German from Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm, Act 2, scene 1, an exchange between Franziska and Minna about Major von Tellheim's virtues.. She uses the quotation to contest the view that virtue arises only from the heart's overflow, demonstrating substantive literary engagement with the play.

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

1837—

Letter to Unknown

p278

analyzed · read

“Lessing's Nathan, Minna, Emilia Galeotti”

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

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p229

read

“Lessing's Nathan, Minna, Emilia Galeotti”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.