WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso. Ein Schauspiel (1790) Inferred

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · Torquato Tasso: Ein Schauspiel [Torquato Tasso: A Play], Weimar, 1790

TranslatedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1841–1846

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters • Books • Notebooks • 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 reading1833–1839Evidence ↓

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
1833Torquato TassoDemonstrated
“Send me the journal and I will send you Tasso when I have finished it.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [ca. 22 April 1833]
Engagement type Translated (Fuller translating Goethe's Tasso) automatically qualifies per rule.
1833Torquato TassoDemonstrated
“I have nearly finished the third act of Tasso- I could get through the play in three days”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 3d May 1833
Engagement type Translated (progress on translating Tasso) automatically qualifies per rule.
1834Torquato TassoDemonstrated
“My translation of Tasso cannot be published at present if ever.”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · Groton 20th March 1834
engagement_type Translated automatically qualifies (her own translation of Tasso).

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed1record

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York2records

VI. Europe2records

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1841—

On Dreams and Sorrow

quoted · readManuscript page

“to me so "God gives to sing what I suffer”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Dreams and Sorrow." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box 3, Folder 132.

Inferred Goethe is not named in the passage, but this quotation is one of the most famous lines in German literature and is uniquely associated with the closing of Tasso Act V Fuller had been working on her own translation of Goethe's Torquato Tasso since the early 1830s (

1841—

The Dial

“Goethe” · Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1841

analyzed · quoted · read

“The best consolation even then is that which Goethe puts into the mouth of Tasso: 'To me gave a God to tell what I suffer.' In 'Tasso' Goethe has described the position of the poetical mind in its prose relations with equal depth and fulness.”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p28-29

1844—

Letter to Sarah Hodges

p228

analyzed · read

“In Goethe the Iphigenia and Tasso would now reward your patient attention”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

p114

analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“Leonora, too, is woman, as we see her now, pure, thoughtful, refined by much acquaintance with grief.”

Inferred Named explicitly as 'Goethe's Torquato Tasso'; Leonora as a character discussed. Leonora as a character in Goethe's Torquato Tasso is discussed.

“A synod of good women should decide," — if the golden age is to be restored. See Goethe's Tasso.”

Inferred Named in footnote as 'Goethe's Tasso' with a quoted line about 'A synod of good women should decide.'. Footnote explicitly cites 'Goethe's Tasso.' The phrase about 'a synod of good women' is from Torquato Tasso.

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.

1846—

New-York Daily Tribune

“Philip Van Artevelde” · 1845

analyzed · read

“Torquato Tasso* is of inferior general, but greater particular beauty.”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p134

1846—

A Rhythmical Translation of Goethe's Tasso

“A Rhythmical Translation of Goethe's Tasso”

translated · read

“TORQUATO TASbO. 413”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p413

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p413; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Notebook 1842

p42

analyzed · readManuscript page

“Goethe's Tasso & Festus are prophecies of / Ellery; thus he is a child of the age.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook 1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (90); Box 6.

n.d.—

On Death

p[1]

analyzed · readManuscript page

“Like poor Tasso in the play who had offered his love & service too officiously to all.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Death." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.

Inferred declared him mad.' 'The play' in which Tasso is a character who offers love and service and is declared mad is Goethe's Torquato Tasso (1790).

n.d.—

Notes toward The Life of Goethe

p42, p54

readManuscript page

“p42: 'Note that Tasso was the favorite part of Goethe's father!'; p54: '9, 10, "Iphigenie", "Tasso" ...”

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

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p147

analyzed · read3 selected passages

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

“Henry Hedge, who had long been her friend, told me of her genius and studies, and loaned me her manuscript translation of Goethe's Tasso.”

“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names... Poor Tasso in the play offered his love and service too officiously to all.”

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