WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship]

Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship] (Berlin: Unger, 1795-96, 4 vols.)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · 1795

TranslatedExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1832–1849

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters • Books • Journals • 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 reading1832–1848Evidence ↓

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
1832Wilhelm Meisters LehrjahreDemonstrated
“I send you the close of my translation which I would like to have you read- I have left out some of the Harp's Swedenborgian remarks”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [mid-August? 1832]
Engagement type Translated (Fuller's translation of Wilhelm Meister) automatically qualifies per rule.
1840Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Harfenspieler poem)Demonstrated
“Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt, Ach! der ist bald allein, Ein jeder lebt, ein jeder liebt, Und lasst ihn seiner Pein”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 25 and 28 October 1840
Verbatim four-line German stanza from Goethe reproduced in full, implying the text was open before her.
1848Wilhelm Meister (Harper's Song)Demonstrated
“I have realized in these last days the thought of Goethe,— "He who would in loneliness live, ah! he is soon alone. Each one loves, each one lives, and leaves him to his pain.”
Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · Rieti, July 11, 1848 (letter heading)
Two-sentence lyric quotation reproduced verbatim from Goethe/Wilhelm Meister, reading as a sustained stanza-length passage.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed3records

IV. Transcendentalist6records

V. New York2records

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1832—

Letter to James F. Clarke

excerpted · read

“I send you the close of my translation which I would like to have you read- I have left out some of the Harp's Swedenborgian remarks; I found it so difficult to English them”

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

Inferred Fuller says she is sending the close of "my translation" and mentions "the Harp's Swedenborgian remarks"; Hudspeth identified the Harp as one of the "Harfenspieler" (Harper) poems in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, with the Harper as a central character whose mystical, guilt-laden songs carry Swedenborgian-like thought, and Fuller is translating passages from this novel.

1834—

Letter to Unknown

p167

analyzed · read

“I was perfectly so with my manner of interpreting the Lehrjahre; but this sequel keeps jerking my clue, and threatens to break it.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

1834—

Fragmentary Reading Notes and Autobiographical Reflections

p12–p17

analyzed · readManuscript page

“N's opinion of Wilhelm Meister appears to me very unworthy of him… The Lehrjahre was an attempt at a reconcilement with life as a whole - but not a completely successful attempt… the conflicting elements which come perpetually to view in the Lehrjahre.”

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

1839—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p53

analyzed · read

“I am best pleased when the writer confines himself to detail as Goethe did, as Mr Dana does.”

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

Inferred Fuller names Goethe explicitly as a critic of Shakespeare who confined himself to detail, referencing book 5 of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, where Wilhelm and Serlo debate the wisdom of condensing Hamlet—

1840—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p129

analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“would it not be well to go to Florence for a while, "Thither, Oh thither" nor return till the dust be laid”

Inferred Fuller's 'Thither, Oh thither' in the context of Florence/Italy strongly echoes the refrain 'Dahin! Dahin!' ('Thither, thither!') of Mignon's Song from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Book III, ch. 1; in period English translations (e.g. Carlyle's 1824 translation) rendered as 'Thither! O thither!' or variants | Fuller places 'Thither, Oh thither' in quotation marks as a literary citation.

“I am very glad I am to own these remarks about the Meister. As to the genius of Goethe the statement, though so much better than others, is too imperfect to be true.”

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

1840—

Letter to William H. Channing

p174

analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt, / Ach! der ist bald allein, / Ein jeder lebt, ein jeder liebt, / Und lasst ihn seiner Pein”

Hudspeth identified this explicitly: 'Fuller accurately quotes the first four lines of one of the "Harfenspieler" poems in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.

“Edith has become the Natalia of the village, as is Melissa its 'Schone Seele”

Inferred Fuller applies two character-names from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister to the real women she is describing: 'Natalia' (the noble heroine of Book 8) and 'Schöne Seele' ('Beautiful Soul,' the confessional narrative of Book 6). Hudspeth identified: 'The reference is to bk. 6 of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.' Although Goethe is not named, the references are to unique characters in a unique work;

Hudspeth identified: 'The reference is to bk.

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

1840—

Journal 1840

p53–p56

analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page

“Wilhelm Meister / Reasons assigned by G's. self [from?] choosing a [milkross?] hero, / Lehrjahre learning not how to act, for that W.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1840." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (85); Box 5 (85).

1841—

The Dial

“Menzel's View of Goethe” · Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1841

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“telling all Goethe's religion in Mignon and Makana [...] I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia.”

Inferred Fuller refers to Mignon, a character from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The name 'Makana' likely alludes to Makarie, a character from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre.

“The continuation of Faust in the practical sense of the education of a man is to be found in Wilhelm Meister.”

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Wilhelm Meister's Travels are cataloged as separate entries because Fuller discusses them as distinct works.

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

1842—

Letter to Elizabeth Hoar

p67

analyzed

“You filled just the place to which Goethe wished to train his Meister.”

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

Inferred Fuller alludes to "the place to which Goethe wished to train his Meister," invoking the educational ideal of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre to praise Elizabeth Hoar's role in guiding another person's development.

1844—

Letter to Georgiana Bruce

p221

read

“If you really think me capable of writing a Lehrjahre for women, (and I will confess that some such project hovers before me) nothing could aid me so much as the facts you are witnessing”

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

Inferred Fuller invokes the German word "Lehrjahre" (years of apprenticeship) in direct allusion to Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, describing a projected bildungsroman about women modeled on Goethe's novel. The German term itself signals the reference without Fuller needing to name the author or full title.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p62

analyzed · read

“I send you a book with which, more than any, except Wilhelm Meister, I have sympathized.”

Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p90

analyzed · read

“My friend, I send you a book with which more than any except Wilhelm Meister, I have sympathized. These two books express something of the peculiar life of this age”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Inferred Fuller names "Wilhelm Meister" explicitly as the work she has most sympathized with alongside Festus.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p216

analyzed · quoted · read6 selected passages

“the wise uncle in Wilhelm Meister”

“I was perfectly so with my manner of interpreting the Lehrjahre”

“His views of Ophelia, however, are unspeakably more just than are those of Serlo in Wilhelm Meister.”

“Faust, and Tasso, and Mignon, and Makaria, and Iphigenia, became irresistible names... poor Mignon! fear not the transition through death”

Inferred Margaret Fuller references the character Mignon from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), seeing in the figure a parallel to her own suffering. fear not the transition through death," suggesting an empathetic understanding of Mignon's plight and potentially projecting her own anxieties onto the character.

“I do not like Bettina for publishing her heart, and am ready to repeat to her Serlo's reproof to Aurelia.”

Inferred This entry identifies Friedrich von Matthisson's Gedichte (Poems), a collection Fuller engages with to critique the self-published sentimentality of her contemporary, Bettina von Arnim.

“I have realized in these last days the thought of Goethe, — 'He who would in loneliness live, ah! he is soon alone. Each one loves, each one lives, and leaves him to his pain.”

Inferred Each one loves, each one lives, and leaves him to his pain.'" This passage, identified by the editors with the Harfner's song "Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt," highlights Fuller's keen awareness of the novel's themes as she contemplates the human need for connection.

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