WorkAlfred Tennyson
"The Poet's Mind," in Poems (1830, rev. 1842) Inferred
Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) · 1830, rev. 1842
InferredHudspeth identified the source as Tennyson's "The Poet's Mind" from *Poems* (1:51), and Fuller quotes the exact phrase "brain of the purple mountain" from the poem's second stanza. Fuller quotes a line from Tennyson's *The Poet's Mind* within quotation marks to describe how the mountain landscape refreshes her spirit. Hudspeth identified Fuller quoted the same Tennyson line in a separate letter, and the poem appeared in Tennyson's *Poems, Chiefly Lyrical* (1830) and subsequent collections.
AnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Documented 1842–1846
Letters • Books
Selected engagements, in chronological order.
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 →
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.
“I have just been reading the new poems of Tennyson.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · August 1842
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re19 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-07b, line 17957, letter Aug 1842; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Explicit 'I have just been reading the new poems of Tennyson'.
“from the brain of the purple mountain" flowed forth cheer to my somewhat weary mind”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Hudspeth identified the source as Tennyson's "The Poet's Mind" from Poems (1:51), and Fuller quotes the exact phrase "brain of the purple mountain" from the poem's second stanza.
“From the brain of the purple mountain" flows forth cheer to my somewhat weary mind.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Hudspeth identified Fuller quoted the same Tennyson line in a separate letter, and the poem appeared in Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) and subsequent collections.
“He has only to be heard to command the audience of that "melodious thunder.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
Inferred Fuller quotes a phrase from 'The Poet's Mind' but names no title; identified by the phrase 'melodious thunder' which appears in Tennyson's 'The Poet's Mind' (1830, revised 1842): 'In the middle leaps a fountain / Like sheet lightning, / Ever brightening / With a low melodious thunder'.
The phrase comes from 'The Poet's Mind' (first published 1830 in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical; reprinted in the 1842 Poems): 'In the middle leaps a fountain / Like sheet lightning, / Ever brightening / With a low melodious thunder.' Fuller uses the phrase to characterize the power of Tennyson's verse.