Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

WorkKarl Simrock

Rheinsagen, aus dem Munde des Volks und deutscher Dichter [Rhine Legends]

Karl Simrock (1802–1876) · Bonn, 1836; reissued 1841

AnalyzedReadMentioned

Letters • Manuscripts

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 →

DemonstratedConfirmed reading1842Evidence ↓

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
  • 1842Rheinsagen, aus dem Munde des Volks und deutscher DichterDemonstrated

    “Fuller undoubtedly got the story from Karl Simrock, Rheinsagen... she reviewed the 1841 reissue... where she translated a portion of the ballad”

    Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · she reviewed the 1841 reissue in her "Romaic and Rhine Ballads," Dial 3 (October 1842)

    Engagement type Translated (Fuller's published ballad translation) automatically qualifies per rule.

When Fuller engaged with this work

No datable encounters with Simrock, Karl have been catalogued yet.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Letter to Unknown

p148
read
“The angel was not weary of waiting for Gunhilde, till she had unravelled her mesh of thought, and seeds of mercy, of purification, were planted in the breast.”

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

Inferred Fuller alludes to the Gunhilde legend—a nun seduced by her confessor who flees her convent, only to discover that an angel took her place during her absence—without naming her source.

Hudspeth traces it to Karl Simrock's Rheinsagen, which Fuller reviewed and translated from in her essay "Romaic and Rhine Ballads." Fuller applies the legend as a personal spiritual metaphor: "The angel was not weary of waiting for Gunhilde."

n.d.—

Notes on Rhine Ballads and Catlin

p1–p3
analyzed · readManuscript page
“The first is "Rheinsagen aus dem Munde des Volks und Deutscher Dichter," Traditions of the Rhine from the mouths of the people and the German poets (edited) by Dr Karl Simrock… Many of the ballads in this collection are modern arrangements of the antique music, many by Simrock himself, and he has a band of able coadjutors.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notes on Rhine Ballads and Catlin." Houghton Library, Harvard University.