WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth]

Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth] (Parts 1-4, 1811–1833)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · posthumously published 1833, in Nachgelassene Werke, vol. 8

TranslatedExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1834–1849

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters • Books • 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 →

AttestedConfirmed reading1836Evidence ↓

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
1836Dichtung und WahrheitAttested
“I have read, too, Heyne's letters twice, Sartor Resartus once, some of Goethe's late diaries, Coleridge's Literary Remains”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 1836
Same explicit list sentence covering Goethe's late diaries.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed1record

IV. Transcendentalist3records

V. New York

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)2records

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1834—

Fragmentary Reading Notes and Autobiographical Reflections

p10–p11

quoted · readManuscript page

“Often enough in my youth I had experienced that, in the moments of our uttermost need, a voice cried aloud to us "Physician cure thyself" and how often was I not forced, in bitterness of heart to reply I must tread the winepress alone.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Fragmentary Reading Notes and Autobiographical Reflections." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Inferred A later pencil annotation identifies this passage as Goethe's.

Fuller quotes a passage attributed to Goethe beginning 'Often enough in my youth I had experienced that, in the moments of our uttermost need, a voice cried aloud to us Physician cure thyself'.

1836—

Letter to Unknown

p242

read

“some of Goethe's late diaries”

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

Inferred Fuller refers to "some of Goethe's late diaries"; Hudspeth suggests she may be referring to part 4 of Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit (published posthumously in 1833) or related diary-like material, though the specific work remains uncertain.

1840—

Letter to Almira P. Barlow(?)

p147

quoted · read

“Care is taken that the tree grow not up into the heavens.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Inferred from Fuller quoting in English translation: 'Care is taken that the tree grow not up into the heavens.' Hudspeth identified the source: the motto begins Part III of Goethe's Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit.

1841—

The Dial

“Goethe” · Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1841

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read

“The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Goethe to the last books of 'Dichtung und Wahrheit.' These books record the hour of turning tide in his life [...] 'The boy believed in nature, in the animate and inanimate, the intelligent and unconscious, to discover somewhat which manifested itself only through contradiction...' ?”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p23

1849—

Letter to Giuseppe Mazzini

p197

quoted · read

“it is true, as said Goethe, that 'Care is taken that the trees grow not up into heaven.”

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

Fuller attributes this aphorism explicitly to Goethe: "Care is taken that the trees grow not up into heaven," which appears as the motto to Part III of Dichtung und Wahrheit.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Letter to unknown

p[appendix]

analyzed · read

“I don't like Goethe so well as Schiller now. I mean, I am not so happy in reading him.”

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

Hudspeth identified Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (Goethe's autobiography) as the work Fuller is actively seeking to read, specifically the second part (books 6–10) covering Goethe's youth until his meeting with Herder.

n.d.—

Letter to Unknown

p141

analyzed · read

“I know not that I can say to you anything more precise than you find from Goethe.”

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

Hudspeth identified this as a reference to Goethe's definition of the Daemonical in book 20 of Dichtung und Wahrheit, describing something that "manifests itself only in contradictions" and finds pleasure only in the impossible.

n.d.—

Notes on Books, Children, and Faith

readManuscript page

“by what Goethe says of Herder's beloved Jacobi. The violent revulsion which the teachings of Kant produced on his yet growing mind interested me particularly.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notes on Books, Children, and Faith." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Inferred Fuller mentions 'what Goethe says of Herder's beloved Jacobi,' indicating she read Goethe's account of the relationship between Herder and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. This discussion appears in Goethe's autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), where Goethe discusses Herder and the Jacobi circle at length. No specific work is named.

n.d.—

Notes toward The Life of Goethe

p1–p19, p32–p43, p55–p57

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page

“Page 1: 'Goethe's own Resume / from 1769 to 1775'; p16: 'the fourth part of Dichtung und Wahrheit which is mottoed Nemo contra deum nisi Deus ipse'; p19: 'Child, Child!”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notes toward The Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

n.d.—

Plan for a Life of Goethe

p1, p7, p8, p13, p20

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page

“Extract from Preface to Poesy & Truth [...] "I was born," he says, "at Frankfort on the Maine, the 28th August, 1749 as the clock struck twelve at noon..." [...] Here translate from D and W.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Plan for a Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

The entire manuscript is Fuller's plan for a biography of Goethe, structured almost entirely around close reading of Dichtung und Wahrheit. The manuscript is a close reading plan — notes toward an essay or book chapter — with page references and translation directives throughout.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1836—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p301

analyzed · read

“As to the Dæmoniacal, I know not that I can say to you anything more precise than you find from Goethe. There are no precise terms for such thoughts.”

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 Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's concept of the "Dæmoniacal," drawn from his writings and suggesting readers seek further precision "from Goethe." While she does not cite a specific text, this reference is readily identifiable as pertaining to Goethe's discussions of das Dämonische, found prominently in his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, and his Conversations with Eckermann.

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p147

read

“Within the year, she had read Goethe's Faust, Tasso, Iphigenia, Hermann and Dorothea, Elective Affinities, and Memoirs...”

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