WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Die Wahlverwandtschaften [Elective Affinities] (1809) Inferred
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · 1809
TranslatedAnalyzedReadMentioned
Documented 1832–1841
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Letters • Books • Manuscripts
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.
“It pains one to part with Ottilia- I wish we could learn books as we do pieces of musick”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [mid-August? 1832]
Personal reaction to parting with a specific character (Ottilia) documents having read/finished the novel.
“Also two of your German books- It pains one to part with Ottilia- I wish we could learn books as we do pieces of musick...”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Inferred She is returning Clarke's copy and displays deep affectionate engagement with the character, as Hudspeth identified.
“I am thinking how I omitted to talk a volume to you about the 'Elective Affinities.' Now I shall never say half of it, for which I, on my own account, am sorry.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“I keep thinking of Ottilia's last boating expedition but natheless we are going.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Inferred Fuller alludes to the tragic boating scene from Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften, in which Ottilie accidentally drowns Eduard and Charlotte's child while rowing across the lake, using "Ottilia" to invoke "her last boating expedition" as a warning omen before her own river outing; Hudspeth identified this identification.
“I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia.”
The same sentence also names Iphigenie auf Tauris [Iphigenia in Tauris]. Counted as one engagement.
“the two surpassingly beautiful works, The Elective Affinities and Iphigenia.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“p55: '17-18,19,20, Wahlverwandtschaften”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notes toward The Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“1832. — I am thinking how I omitted to talk a volume to you about the 'Elective Affinities.' Now I shall never say half of it...”
“Has not ——— vied, in her deeds of love, with "my Cid," and the holy Ottilia?”
Inferred Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities) by referencing its famously saintly character, Ottilia. Fuller implicitly elevates this character alongside the legendary "my Cid" as exemplars of devoted action.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.