WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe's Letters to Zelter

Goethe's Letters to Zelter (posth. 1833–34) Inferred

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · posth. 1833–34

InferredIn her journal entry of December 12, 1843, Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's *Briefe an Zelter* (Letters to Zelter), a posthumously published collection of correspondence. Fuller cites Goethe's reflection on how a "daemon" influences an individual's handwriting, particularly noting his appreciation for Zelter's "true handwriting" as an instance where adverse influences were overcome.

Translated

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

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analyzed · quoted · read

“Dec. 12, 1843. — When Goethe received a letter from Zelter, with a handsome superscription, he said, 'Lay that aside; it is Zelter's true handwriting.”

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 In her journal entry of December 12, 1843, Margaret Fuller engages with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Briefe an Zelter (Letters to Zelter), a posthumously published collection of correspondence. Fuller cites Goethe's reflection on how a "daemon" influences an individual's handwriting, particularly noting his appreciation for Zelter's "true handwriting" as an instance where adverse influences were overcome.