WorkPlato

Phaedrus or Symposium

Plato (c. 428 BCE–c. 348 BCE)

InferredDuring the week of December 26, 1839, Margaret Fuller engaged with the philosophical writings of Plato, noting, "I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write.

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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 reading1839Evidence ↓

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
1839PhaedrusAttested
“I have just been reading Plato's Phaedrus, and last night I banqueted with him”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton Sunday evening Jany 27th 183g
"I have just been reading Plato's Phaedrus" is an explicit, dated reading statement.
1839Symposium (the Banquet)Attested
“last night I banqueted with him,-so I think I must be tuned up to concert pitch.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton Sunday evening Jany 27th 183g
"last night I banqueted with him" continues the same explicit reading statement, referring to the Symposium.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p309

analyzed · read

“Dec. 26, 1839. [...] I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write. I hoped to be tuned up thereby.”

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 During the week of December 26, 1839, Margaret Fuller engaged with the philosophical writings of Plato, noting, "I have been reading Plato all the week, because I could not write.