WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
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Documented 1841–1842
Letters • Journals • 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.
“When speaking of Goethe's "Farbenlehre," which delighted her with the beautiful symbolism it suggested, she says, "There was a time when one such fact would have made my day brilliant with thought, but now I seek the Divine rather in love than law.”
Mem-3 Reminiscences of Edna Cheney · It is pleasant to me that her next home, November, 1840, was at Jamaica Plain, Mass. ... It was a time of thought and exaltation
Cheney's memoir, dated to Nov. 1840 Jamaica Plain, describes Fuller's delighted reaction to Goethe's Farbenlehre with a quoted retrospective remark, a specific dated reading episode though not a present-tense reading claim.
“I have been reading, most of the day, the "Farbenlehre." The facts interest me only in their mystical significance.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Sunday, 21 February 1841
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re383 (Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers), M-044.txt, Page 1; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. "I have been reading, most of the day, the 'Farbenlehre'" is an explicit, dated reading statement.
“I have been reading, most of the day, the "Farbenlehre." The facts interest me only in their mystical significance.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“I have been reading most of the day the Farben-Lehre. The facts only interest me only in their mystical significance.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Entry, February 1841." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 95.
“Plants which grow in darkness make, it is true, long shoots from joint to joint … Light, on the other hand, places it at once in an active state. — G. Farberlehre”
Fuller, Margaret. "Reading Notes, 1841." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1221 (Caroline Sturgis Tappan papers, 1838–1921).
Fuller attributes the extract to "G.
“Robert Bartlett has found in the Arcana the prediction of Goethe's Theory of Colors.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Fragments, 1842." Margaret Fuller Family Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“p60: '51 - 52 - Mineralogy. Geology / Farbenlehre. / 53 54 Historique of The Farbenlehre. / 55. Appendix to Farben and Pflanzenlehre with a memoir on Osteology.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notes toward The Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.