Margaret and Her Friends

Margaret and Her Friends - or, Ten conversations with Margaret Fuller upon the mythology of the Greeks and its expression in art, held at the house of the Rev. George Ripley, Bedford Place, Boston, beginning March 1, 1841

In 1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in health and much overtaxed, consented to gratify many who loved her by opening in Boston a series of Conversations for Women. In a Circular quoted by Emerson, she says to Mrs. Sophia Ripley: This was certainly the original intent of the famous Fuller Conversations, which, beginning then, were continued at[6] intervals, until Margaret left Boston for New York in 1844. It seems a little singular, therefore, to find her writing to Ralph Waldo Emerson of this series, Nov. 25, 1839, as follows: Under the forms suggested by Mythology, Margaret proceeded to open all the great questions of life. In a literary sense, she distinctly stated that she knew[7] little about the doings on Olympus, nor had she received any help from German critical works,of which at the present day she would have found many. These Conversations owed their attraction first to the absolute novelty of her theme to many of those she addressed, and still more to the variety and freshness of her own treatment. The opening, at the Boston Athenum, of the splendid collection of casts presented by Thomas Handasyd Perkins, and many private collections of pictures, engravings, gems, and miniature casts, had interested her intensely, and both mind and fancy were absorbed in the contemplation of their themes. In these Conversations she depicted what she had gained from Art, rather than the little that she had acquired through study. If I may judge from a later experience, her Latin studies rather injured than developed her[8] brilliant fancies. She never could remember what she had said, never could repeat a brilliant saying, and, if obliged to read any illustration, read it, as all her friends admitted, very badly. From a statement made to Emerson, I quote the following: ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 62756
Author: Dall, Caroline Wells Healey
Release Date: Jul 25, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Fuller, Margaret, 1810-1850