WorkWilliam Shakespeare

Macbeth

Macbeth (c. 1606; first published in First Folio, 1623), Act IV, scene i Inferred

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · c. 1606; First Folio 1623

AnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1836–1845

Letters • Books • Essays • Journals

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 →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York4records

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1836—

Letter to Temperance H. Colburn

p253

quoted · read

“Love to Sarah and "all your pretty ones”

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

Inferred Fuller places "all your pretty ones" in quotation marks when addressing the Colburn family children, echoing Macduff's lament in Macbeth Act 4, Scene 3: "What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?" The quoted phrase signals her use of a recognizable literary allusion that had become something of a commonplace expression.

1836—

Journal December 1836

p34

analyzedManuscript page

“How admirably Macduff's grief is in harmony with the whole play! It rends, not dissolves, the heart. The tune of it goes manly.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal December 1836." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1086; Box 3.

1843—

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843

read

“with a curiosity as ardent, but not so selfish as that of Macbeth, to call up the apparitions of future kings from the strange ingredients of the witch's caldron”

Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.

Inferred Fuller explicitly names 'Macbeth' and alludes to Act IV, scene i of Shakespeare's play, where Macbeth demands the witches show him the procession of future kings from their cauldron.

1845—

New-York Daily Tribune

“Thomas Hood” · July 18, 1845 · p. 1

quoted · read2 selected passages

“After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;”

Inferred The author is inferred, though the unique quotation confirms the source text.

“for the pot will not boil to make the gold through your / "Double, double, / Toil and trouble," / if love do not fan the fire.”

Inferred This quotation, "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and cauldron bubble," is from Shakespeare's Macbeth (4.1.10-11). Although Shakespeare and the play are not named, Fuller quotes the first line in verse and integrates it into an alchemical and social metaphor.

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.

1845—

America and the American People . . .

“America and the American People . . .”

quoted · read

“And so, seeing already a more than Banquo’s length of line advance to receive the bequest, we gladly will them the thick volume.”

Fuller, Margaret. "America and the American People . . ." New-York Daily Tribune, 4 December 1845. · 4 December 1845

1845—

Mr. Hudson’s Lecture on Hamlet.

“Mr. Hudson’s Lecture on Hamlet.”

mentioned

“We liked the lecturer better than his lecture, and expect more satisfaction from that on Macbeth, which we shall attend next Friday evening.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Mr. Hudson’s Lecture on Hamlet." New-York Daily Tribune, 19 February 1845. · 19 February 1845

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

The Modern Drama

“The Modern Drama”

mentioned

“jEdipus, Macbeth, Wallenstein, chain us for the hour, lead us through the age.”

Fuller, Margaret. Art, Literature, and the Drama. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. New York: The Tribune Association, 1869. · p111