In this Book
- Margaret Fuller, Wandering Pilgrim
- Book
- 2008
- Published by: University of Georgia Press
Meg McGavran Murray discusses Fuller’s Puritan ancestry, her life as the precocious child of a preoccupied, grieving mother and of a tyrannical father who took over her upbringing, her escape from her loveless home into books, and the unorthodox--and influential--male and female role models to which her reading exposed her. Murray also covers Fuller’s authorship of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, her career as a New-York Tribune journalist first in New York and later in Rome, her pregnancy out of wedlock, her witness of the fall of Rome in 1849 during the Roman Revolution, and her return to the land of her birth, where she knew she would be received as an outcast.
Other biographies call Fuller a Romantic. Margaret Fuller, Wandering Pilgrim illustrates how Fuller internalized the lives of the heroes and heroines in the ancient and modern Romantic literature that she had read as a child and adolescent, as well as how she used her Romantic imagination to broaden women’s roles in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, even as she wandered the earth in search of a home.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xiv
- A Note to Readers
- p. xv
- Chronology
- pp. xvii-xx
- 1. Her Father’s House
- pp. 8-22
- 2. Hungry for Love
- pp. 23-29
- 3. “Gate of Paradise”
- pp. 30-32
- 4. The World of Books
- pp. 33-44
- 5. Boston Schooling
- pp. 46-51
- 6. Boarding School at Groton
- pp. 52-54
- 9. The Search for Self
- pp. 68-70
- 10. The Farm in Groton
- pp. 71-83
- 11. The Search for a Guide
- pp. 86-93
- 12. A Fluid Friendship
- pp. 94-99
- 13. A “Forlorn” Boston Winter
- pp. 100-104
- 15. “Drawn” by Fuller’s Siren Song
- pp. 117-122
- 16. Retreat from Her Siphoning Sea
- pp. 123-135
- Part Four: The Seductive Lure of Nature
- pp. 136-137
- 17. Religious Crisis
- pp. 138-139
- 18. A Divine Madness
- pp. 140-142
- 19. The Siren Song of Nature
- pp. 143-144
- 20. The Seductive Sand
- pp. 145-149
- 21. Demonic Desires
- pp. 150-157
- 22. “The Daemon Works His Will”
- pp. 158-162
- 23. Redeeming Her Friendships from “Eros”
- pp. 163-165
- 24. Mystic Cleansing
- pp. 166-169
- 25. Paradise Regained
- pp. 170-172
- Part Five: The “Fine Castle”of Her Writing
- pp. 178-179
- 27. A Time to Write
- pp. 180-185
- 28. Millennial Fever
- pp. 186-187
- 29. Fuller’s Apocalypse
- pp. 188-196
- 30. Contradictory Wishes and Dreams
- pp. 197-198
- 31. Pilgrims and Prodigals
- pp. 199-203
- 32. Discordant Energies
- pp. 204-206
- 35. “What Is the Lady Driving At?”
- pp. 222-227
- 36. A Divided Life
- pp. 228-238
- 37. Fallen Women and Worldly Men
- pp. 239-246
- 38. The Garden’s Desecration
- pp. 247-249
- 40. Romantic Obsession
- pp. 254-257
- 41. A Soul- Paralyzing Pain
- pp. 258-260
- 42. A Trust Betrayed
- pp. 261-265
- 43. The Dark Side of Her Lot
- pp. 266-270
- 44. “Possessed of ” Her Father
- pp. 271-273
- 45. Yearning to Wash Her Soul of Sin
- pp. 274-276
- 46. The Ties That Bind
- pp. 277-281
- 48. Entering the European Stage
- pp. 290-294
- 49. Mazzini Enters
- pp. 295-299
- 50. Mickiewicz Enters
- pp. 300-305
- 51. On to Lyons and Italy
- pp. 306-308
- 52. On to Rome
- pp. 309-312
- 53. Ossoli Enters
- pp. 313-317
- 54. To Marry, or Not to Marry?
- pp. 318-325
- 55. Do As the Romans Do
- pp. 326-334
- 56. Roman Winter
- pp. 335-341
- 58. Personal and Political Rebellions
- pp. 346-352
- 59. A Love Higher than Law or Passion
- pp. 353-363
- 60. Harsh Reality and Apocalyptic Dreams
- pp. 365-370
- 61. The Lull before the Storm
- pp. 371-378
- 62. Deceit and Treachery
- pp. 379-384
- 63. The Fall of Rome
- pp. 385-392
- 64. Last Illusions
- pp. 393-403
- 65. A Wayward Pilgrim Journeys Home
- pp. 404-412
- Bibliography
- pp. 474-492