The Storied Facts of Margaret Fuller

Haverford College Haverford Scholarship

Faculty Publications English

1996

Christina Zwarg Haverford College, [email protected]

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Repository Citation Zwarg, Christina. "The Storied Facts of Margaret Fuller." New England Quarterly 69.1 (1996): 128-42. Print.

This Journal Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Haverford Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Haverford Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Review: The Storied Facts of Margaret Fuller Author(s): Christina Zwarg Review by: Christina Zwarg Source: The New England Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 128-142 Published by: The New England Quarterly, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/366307 Accessed: 28-04-2015 18:37 UTC

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This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Essay Review

THE STORIED FACTS OF MARGARET FULLER

CHRISTINA ZWARG

MargaretFuller: An AmericanRomantic Life, The PrivateYears. By CharlesCapper. (New York:Oxford University Press. 1992. Pp. ix, 423. $39.95.) Earthof our pot I smasheddogs me fourflights- youare yourbiographer's best American woman ... -Robert Lowell "To MargaretFuller Drowned" AFTER I finishedwriting a book on MargaretFuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson,the Haverfordprovost asked me to share my researchinterests with students, faculty, and othermembers of the college community.'Given the recentspate of publicationsabout Fuller, includingBell Chevigny'srevised and importantanthology, RobertHudspeth's completed edition of her letters,and the award- winningbiography by CharlesCapper, I foundmyself inclined to re- flectupon Fuller'svarious "returns" to historicalmemory.2 The talk elaboratedthat theme for a good fiftyminutes, and at itsclose a num- ber ofengaging questions emerged from the audience. Perhaps two of the mostchallenging were asked by scientists,though the power of theirquestions did notresonate for me untilI tookin handthe task of reviewingCapper's book. The firstquestion came froma chemistwho asked fora briefac- countof Fuller'sfamily background to help himground my narrative of her work.Remembering how oftendetails of Fuller'slife had de- railed a deeper understandingof her writing,I challengedmy colleague to considerthe value ofhis inquiry as a guideto herthinking. I startleda fewpeople in the audiencewhen I did so, and I believe I

'FeministConversations: Fuller, Emerson and the Play of Reading(Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1995). 2Bell Gale Chevigny,Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings:The Woman and the Myth(Boston: NortheasternUniversity Press, 1994); RobertN. Hudspeth,ed., The Lettersof Margaret Fuller, vols. 1-6 (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1983-95). 128

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ESSAY REVIEW 129 startleda fewmore when I made it clearthat I wouldonly be able to followa narrativeof the patrilinealdescent in anycoherent way and thereforepreferred not to givea directanswer to the question.A second query was posed by a physicist,who asked most sincerelyif "Fuller had any significantideas" thatwould help him more readily understandher returnto history.Having spoken for fifty minutes on thatvery topic, I was stunnedby the question.Brushing aside the worrisomeimplication that I had been wastingeveryone's time with mytalk, I did mybest to reviewthe contentsof mylecture in a few quick mouthfuls,laboring to make Fuller'scomplex, theoretical con- cernsstill more accessibleto thiseclectic, general audience. I could have dismissedmy colleague's query as a forlornreminder of the breachbetween the "two cultures," but laterthe ideas generatedby a carefulreading of Capper's book made me realize thatthe second question,like the first,deserved a morecareful, if not elaborate,re- sponsethan the one I had musteredat themoment of its asking. Nevertheless,I made littleheadway on these mattersuntil I en- countereda reviewof a recentDarwin biography by GeorgeLevine, a well-knownliterary critic.3 In his review,Levine considered the value Darwin'slife narrative might hold for an understandingof his science. Levine'slively engagement with this issue drewme to anotherof his essays on Victorianscientific autobiography where he describesin greaterdetail how the rise of positivismmade it possibleto imagine thata scientist'sauthority depended upon the"death" of his subjectiv- ity.4Levine showsfar more subtly than I can demonstratehere how thissecularized understanding of scientificauthority both paralleled and challengedequally secularized notions of individual authority and creativity.The conflictingimperatives of theseperspectives and their consequencesfor narrative form came to a head when accomplished theoristslike Darwin indulgedin autobiography.In such cases, the storyof a lifeand the storyof a scientificdiscovery became entwined so completelythat the fine line between subjectiveand objective truthsblurred in compellingand, in Levine's handling,instructive ways. Thinkingthrough this material, I saw how the two questionsfrom the scientificcommunity at Haverfordemerged from these largely

3GeorgeLevine, "Darwin Revised, and Carefully Edited," Configurations 1 (1994): 191-202,a reviewof Adrian Desmond and James Moore's Darwin (New York: Warner Books,1991). 4GeorgeLevine, "Objectivity and Death: Victorian Scientific Autobiography," Victo- rianLiterature and Culture20 (1993): 273-91.

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 130 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY unresolvedperspectives and thatboth perspectives would come into playas I discussedmy response to Capper'sbook. The chemistasking for more biographicalinformation no doubt found my resistance strange,since he had deployeda traditionalhumanistic assumption concerningthe value of one's backgroundwhen he inquiredabout Fuller's family.When I asked him to considerhow such reassuring narrativesare oftenskewed by less than objectivecultural assump- tions,my responsetook on a strangelyscientific character. (Indeed, thisquest forgreater "objectivity" has resultedin the introductionof theoryto literarystudies.) As a literarycritic enmeshed in theory,I foundit easyto suggestthat the fictionof identity upon which he was dependingneeded reassessment(though I did notmean to implythat it shouldbe dismissed).With this response, the secondquestioner no doubt feltjustified in his demand foran accountof the "real" sub- stanceof Fuller'sintellectual legacy. Asking whether or not she had any"significant ideas" seemedlike a fairquestion. Readingabout the legacy of positivism for narrative form, I realized that I could no more establisha familiarnarrative for the second questionerthan I could forthe first,since the storyof Fuller'swork does notresemble anything like the storyof Darwin'stheory of evolution.Nor could I formulateher as a greatsystem builder in the man- ner of many well-known,nineteenth-century thinkers, Marx and Freud among them,for Fuller's mostvaluable contributionto the world of analysisemerged in the intersticesof familiardisciplinary boundaries,including the boundariessharpening in the nineteenth centurybetween the authorityof individualexperience and the authorityof objective truth. It is arguablethat Fuller's "phantom" hovers over today'scritical scene because we onlynow begin to findthose boundariessafe to cross, thoughmy experienceat Haverfordre- mindedme thatsuch crossingsare stillmore redoubtablethan I at firstunderstood. I had no usefulor recognizablefiction of identity for eitherof myscientific friends-not one forFuller's lifenor forher work. I could noteven makeFuller easier to understandby calling her an artistin the traditionalsense of the term. Nor could I call her a womanwriter in the now familiarsense; neithera GeorgeSand nora GeorgeEliot, Fuller eschewed the lifeof a poet as well. I mighthave been contentto describeher as an "intellectualprophet in the mode of her difficultmentors Carlyle and Emerson,"as Capper does in his biography.But I knew frommy own workwith Emerson thatwe needed a slightlymore extravagantcharacterization than this to de-

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ESSAY REVIEW 131 scribe her work faithfully.No one saw this categoricalimperative morekeenly than Emerson, who attemptedto distancehimself from Carlyle'snarrative style in hisown account of Fuller'senigmatic force. In answeringmy physicist colleague, and in mylecture, I empha- sized theway Fuller had changedour understandingof the process of analysisitself by focusingon a new wayof readingthe worldaround her. But such an abstractidea appliesas readilyto Darwin,Marx, and Freud, and withoutfamiliar narratives such as those thathave been establishedfor the workof evolution,Marxism, or psychoanalysis(al- beitcontentious and fractiousones at that),it remainsdifficult to sup- ply a briefcharacterization of Fuller's unique contributionto the worldof analytic thought. I was tempted,of course,to say simplythat Fuller was a feminist. But because the word "feminism"is such a generalterm--one that did not existin Fuller'slifetime-and because it has a contradictory and troubledstatus both in thescientific community and amongfemi- nistsas well,such a characterizationdoes farless thanit mightto dis- close the depthof her contributionto the intellectualand social historyof the United States. When we have a more fullyelaborated historyof feminismsthan we do now, perhapsthis descriptionwill prove more,rather than less, suggestiveof her power.Certainly the goalsof anynew biographyof Fullermight well includethe intention to enhanceour understandingof thevalue and historyof feminismin the UnitedStates by meansof the illustrativelife of one of itsleading figures.But biographiesof Fullerhave come and gone,and mysense at the timewas thatnone had yetmade it possiblefor me adequately to addressthe question of Fuller'ssignificance. Fuller may well be, as Capper asserts,"the most written-about womanin earlyAmerican history," but she is also one ofthe least read authorsof the nineteenthcentury. Her lifestory appears to have ap- pealed to readersmuch more than her difficultand ambitiouscritical writing;thus, there have been manybiographies and fewcritical studies ofher work. Her deathby shipwreck at the age offorty gave a dra- maticsense of closureto thatlife, and, in a sense,the returnof her bodyto a space just offthis country's shores preempted the returnof heranalytic gifts. Therefore, I had come to viewFuller's appeal to bi- ographersas a symptomrather than a releaseof the repressednarra- tiveof her power. I thereforeturned to the Capper biographywith some trepidation, thoughI was immediatelyrelieved to see thathe intendedto reverse some ofthe more damaging trends of previous accounts. Most notable

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 132 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY was his determinationto "get the factsstraight."5 To thisadmirable goal he added the corollaryof providingan accountof "Fullerthink- ing and actingwith others." For Capper thismeant integrating into her lifestory "what she believed,what she arguedfor, what she con- ceptualized"and "madeinto symbols." Having read manyof the same primaryand secondarytexts of Fuller'slife, I knewhow hardgetting "the facts straight" could be. As a historian,Capper musthave feltenriched by the wealthof tradi- tionalmaterial available to him,for he barelygrumbles about the truly randomand unsortedmass of documentsfrom Fuller's life that have foundtheir way to variousarchives, the HoughtonLibrary foremost among them. Capper, of course, acknowledgeshis debt to Robert Hudspethfor the amazingedition of Fuller's lettershe has drawn fromthat mass. I, on the otherhand, have indulgedin resentfulcom- parisonsbetween the haphazardcondition of Fuller'sworks and the fastidiousorder of Emerson'spapers (bothpublished and private)at Harvard.Even trackingdown Fuller's published writing takes consid- erable effort.Certainly, Capper is muchmore modest than he needs to be about the formidabletask he set beforehimself when he em- barkedon thisproject. Capper spendsconsiderable time framing his narrativeby describ- ing severalfamily generations previous to Fuller's own as the first- bornchild of MargarettCrane and TimothyFuller, Jr. We hear about her father'sfamous tutelage and her earlyemotional attachments to men and women alike,particularly her relationshipswith Ellen Kil- shaw,George Davis, James Freeman Clarke, Elizabeth Peabody, Har- riet Martineau,Caroline Sturgis,and Sam Ward. We learn as well about the firstfew years of her interactionwith Ralph Waldo Emer- son, includingtheir early work together on the Dial. For Capper, Fuller'sjob as editor,with which he ends volumeone of his study, marksthe momentFuller begins to assumeher "public"role as intellectualprophet for the culture. It also marksthe momentwhen my story about Fuller really begins, foras I show in my study,her relationshipwith Emerson and her workon theDial help to transformher interest in literatureand trans- lationinto a sustainedinterpretive strategy. In myview, the task of the translatorbecomes the operative model for the taskof reading and in-

5Cappernevertheless owes a greatdeal (as do we all) to previousbiographies and especiallyto a complextext like Chevigny'sWoman and the Myth.Chevigny surely shareshis desireto "getthe factsstraight" even as she boldlyinterrupts her biographi- cal narrativeto presentFuller's voice.

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ESSAY REVIEW 133 terpretationin which Fuller engaged throughouther career. For Fuller,translation is less abouta conquestof meaning,a masterythat subdues and potentiallyannihilates an alien set of values (hence everythingthat gets lost in translation),than it is about the proliferationof meaning,or everythingthat might be foundwhen new values open to viewwithin both languages. In criticism,as in translation,the taskis to allow one's own languageto be powerfullyaffected by the alien one, ratherthan to hold it constant.Thus Fuller's interestin translationguides her thinkingthrough many cultural issues because she sees thata hermeneuticmaneuver deriving its authorityfrom a strugglefor masteryover meaning has violent historicalconse- quences. Equipped with this theoreticalunderstanding of Fuller's work,I foundmyself in the strangeposition of knowing what I wanted Capper to say withoutknowing what he would actuallydo withthis richsymbolic world that Fuller elaborates. I discovered,however, that I could contentmyself with analyzing Capper'sway of framingthe factsof her "private"years which lead to thisimportant moment, for I had a specialinterest in seeinghow his accountmight support and enhance myown readingof Fuller and perhapsmake it easierto explainthat reading to myscientific friends. Divulgingmy peculiar perspective seems far better than denying it; it also explainswhy I keptgenerating a seriesof stories that I mighthave been temptedto weaveinto my own narrative about Fuller's work had I been able to read Capper's textbefore completing my own. The thoughtthat these fantasiesmight help otherswhose thinkingon Fuller is stillin its formativestages provided me witha comfortable rationale.I was also drivenby an impishsense offair play, since Cap- per can nowread my book as he preparesthe nextvolume of his biography,should he so choose. The crucialdifference in our approachesto Fuller'slife and work seems to be our understandingof whatCapper calls "fantasy"and its relationshipto the "real"world of the nineteenthcentury. Both of us wantto recovera narrativeof Fuller"thinking and actingwith others," butwe employdivergent strategies for recovering facts from our reading.I assumedthat Fuller's symbolic and theoreticalworld would sup- plyan ample numberof clues to importantaspects of thematerial re- alityof her world, while Capper begins with the familiar objects of her "experience"to elaborateher "ideas and fantasiesof intellectualiden- tity,both of herself and herculture." Reflecting on theinteresting way both perspectivesemerged in the questionsfrom the scientificcom- munityat Haverford,I saw thatCapper and I needed to keep ourper-

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 134 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY spectivesin conversationwith one anotherin order to translate Fuller'spower to a stilllarger intellectual community. Once againlo- cated at the border of several disciplines,we only had to follow Fuller'slead to findher there. I tookdelight in some of the factsas theyarrived in Capper's account. The storytellerin me no doubt resonatedto the detail that Fuller'smother stood at an imposing5 feet,10 inches,but I also feltit provideda clue to a betternarrative of "theideas and fantasiesof in- tellectualidentity" at workin Fullerand her view of the culture.Of course, even the factsof Fuller's life are elusive,as Capper well knows.What does it mean,for example, that Fuller's mature height remainsunknown? We hear fromCapper that in her earlyyears Fullerproudly described herself as a tall girl(5 feet,2 inchesat age ten),and Capper showsthat strangers saw herthat way as well.Yet we learn fromstill others, Emerson and Caroline Sturgisamong them, thatthey found her "ratherunder the middleheight." Accounts of Fuller's appearance vary considerably,and the ambiguityof her heightsuggests that some extremelyfascinating responses were at play wheneverFuller came into a room. Whateverthe reason for theseresponses, Fuller's elusive physical appearance returned me to a hostof questionsguiding my reading of Capper's narrative,questions I actuallyshared with the chemist at Haverford. I mighthave satisfiedthe scientistwith a synopsisof the family storytold by Capper at the openingof his firstvolume. A muchmore detailedaccount of Fuller'sPuritan ancestors than we have everhad, it is a valuablecontribution to our understandingof one aspectof her background.The frustrationI experienced upon readingabout one Fuller generationafter another (and the frustrationI experienced withthe chemist'squestion as posed) had to do withits restrictive quality.I keptthinking how refreshingit would be to begin instead withan accountof thewomen and relativesfrom the mother'sside of Fuller'sfamily. This would have been a moreproblematic task, if only because familynames would have turnedaround with each new mar- riage,but I believeit would have been a rewardingone. I do notmean to suggestthat family stories of Fuller'sfather, his fatherbefore him, and the fatherbefore him did not have an importantshaping influence on Fuller, for theysurely did. But imaginingthe impacton Fullerof theseother family stories seems equallyimportant for com- prehendingher enormousreservoir of strength.Because the factsof thesefamily legends are moredifficult to trackdown, the explanatory powerof the legends themselves too oftenbecomes hidden or lost.

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The reader of Capper's biographyfirst encounters Margarett Crane, Fuller'smother, through the wordwife. The readeraware of Fuller'sdeliberate emphasis on the powerof womenthrough history in herfamous Woman in theNineteenth Century will understand that thispresentation of her motherdoes notprepare us to knowFuller in quite the wayshe herselfmight have hoped. Indeed, even the narrativeof MargarettCrane getsbogged down the momenther fullname appears,for it is no soonerintroduced than the readeris givena historyof the (patrilineal)Crane familyand thusfenced off from tales of the many(matrilineal) men and womenof diversenames who were also amongFuller's ancestors. Yet Capper's traditionalstart may also help to explainwhy the detail of MargarettCrane's heightinterrupted the flowjust a bit and gave me a briefrush of euphoria.I rememberfeeling I was at lastar- rivingat anothertype of materialreality, a surprisingone thatcould have emergedfrom Fuller's pen. If MargarettCrane has been somethingof a "nonentity"in otheraccounts of Fuller's life,as Capper avers,this detail implied that she would be more adequatelyde- scribedwithin his pages. And as Capper movesthrough Fuller's early years,he does givea morecomplete view of Fuller'srelationship with her motherthan we have previouslyhad. Here he is aided by letters writtenbetween Fuller's parents, as well as Fuller'sletters and jour- nals. MargarettCrane's sharpand intuitivegrasp of interpersonalre- lationshipsmay be the mostseductive aspect of her personalitywe gleanfrom Capper's stillrelatively brief account. But I savoredevery freshdetail: the image of MargarettCrane's pipe-smokingmother; the newsthat Margarett Crane Fullerhad a breasttumor (though we never findout if Fuller knew about it or how she responded);the earthyglimpse of Fuller'smother transplanting cuttings from her ex- traordinarygarden whereverfamily members would reside, often replicatingher gardenin its entirety.Capper inauguratesan impor- tantrecovery with these facts,one thatI hope will encouragemore readersto developan amplernarrative (perhaps a novel!)about Mar- garettCrane Fuller,for the storyof thisnineteenth-century woman needs to be toldwith still more freedom. We do learnsomething about Sarah Williams, Fuller's grandmother on her father'sside, who grewup in a home withslaves. Apparently her fatherfreed them upon his death withthe commandthat each familymember take a shareof responsibilityfor their welfare. Capper does not speculateon whatimpact this story may have had on Fuller, thoughit is one of thoseirresistible details that I could easilyimagine

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 136 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY weavinginto Fuller's sense of identity.Neither do we learn why Fuller,named Sarah Margarettafter the two mostimportant women in her father'slife, chose in her earlyadulthood to drop the name Sarah.There are clues in Capper'shandling that Fuller thought Sarah an old-fashionedname, but one wondersstill more about her striking persistencein establishingMargaret Fuller as her chosen name.6It certainlybalances out the influenceof bothparents and even grants Fuller a special authorityin the process.If thistype of speculation drawsus too farbeyond the science of biography,it is a speculation set offby one of the delightfulfacts Capper's readerwill meet along theway. Of course,no one has done moreto problematizethe activityof re- coveringfacts and fantasiesof identityfrom an individual'slife than Freud. Freud's determinationto turnhis theoryof traumaand the unconsciousinto a scienceadds an interestingand, I think,useful di- mensionto any analysisof Fuller,since she became somethingof a theoristof trauma, both in herlife and in theworld around her. More- over,Freud's desire to workfrom clinical experience to avoidwhat he called "wild analysis"was oftenfrustrated by certainsubjective as- pects inherentin the process,a complicationnot unlikethe one a criticencounters when making an analysisof Fullerand her"fantasies of identity."Freud was stillattempting late in his lifeto establishhow an analystcould be certainthat he was in possessionof an analytic fact.His "Constructionsin Analysis"shows him responding to a scien- tistwho complainedthat a patientwould invariablyfind himself in a "no-win"situation with regard to the factsof analysis.If the patient denied the value of an analyst'sconstruction, for example, the denial itselfwould be deployedas a "fact"for interpretation without due considerationof the denial's factualvalidity. A carefulreading of Freud's essay lends ironiccredence to his friend'scomplaint, since Freud'sdefensive denial gives us a chanceto interprethis responsein a wayhe mightnot like. Nabokov parodies the same issue in Palefire, when his egocentricnarrator insists that the critic,after all, has the lastword in anyanalysis. Small wonder that Freud returnsto theissue of hallucinationat the close of his essay,for the ghostof his denial seemsto risebefore him.7

60f course,Fuller also droppedthe final"t" of her mother'sname, a matterabout whichothers may care to speculate. 71want to thankDavid M. Sachs forconversations concerning the consequences for clinicalpractice of Freud's objectivistaccount of the psychoanalyticmethod. I espe- ciallywant to thankhim for sharing with me chapterdrafts from his forthcomingstudy, HealingConversations.

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But ifwe are reallyinterested in recoveringthe fictionsof identity thatFuller elaborated both for herself and her culture,we cannotaf- fordto place her in thistype of "no-win"situation. The onlyway to avoiddoing that is to open ourselvesto new waysof readingher, new waysof seeinghow she maysometimes provoke our own defensesas we listento herand accountsabout her. Just as the scienceof psycho- analysishas broadenedto include the analyst'ssubjectivity, so, too, the scienceof biographyor literarycriticism needs to be attentiveto fictionsof identityat playin the taskof analysis.I foundthat an un- usuallyproductive insight emerged whenever I let Fuller,or the en- semblewe call "Fuller,"including the fieldof ideas surroundingthe name,perform as myanalyst just a bit.This is anotherway of saying thatI learnedto be moreattentive to thosemoments when I became defensivein the presenceof this conceptualfield, or what Capper callsthe "phantom" of MargaretFuller. One ofthe mostpowerfully defensive strains in Capper'sbiography appearswhen he recitesthe litanyof criticalcomments made about Fullerover the years. These denigratingstories cover and, in a literal sense,disguise almost everything there is to knowabout her-her appearance,her mannerof speaking,her styleof writing, her emotional ties,etc. Untilnow, every reader of "Fuller"has had to contendwith thismaterial (there is so muchof it), and Capper no doubtdecided thathe wouldbe ignoringvital "facts" were he to excludeit fromhis account.But I thinkhe could havedispensed with this means of fram- ingher apparentlyalways stunning and surprisingpresence. Capper's descriptionof Emerson'sadvice to Fuller concerningher prefaceto the firstDial issue seems apt. Give up the apologeticstyle, Emerson told Fuller,eschew defensesand presentthe underlyingreasons for themagazine in bold and confidenttones. Such adviceis alwayseasier to offeror reportthan to follow,for I too foundthe swampof gossip and pettyresponse to Fullerdeflecting vital attention away from her intellect.Yet I also realizedthat giving in to thisother material oddly nourishedit, while the moreimportant "Fuller" remained caught in a "no-win"situation. I foundit muchmore satisfying to denythe factual value of thesedescriptions (save, perhaps, for what they might tell us about those surroundingFuller) and to inventnew ways of talking aboutthe unquestioned fact of her extraordinary analytic power. Capper recovershis focusjust a bit when he establishesFuller's empathicresponsiveness as her mostpowerful interpersonal skill. In the process,he nearlyturns her intoa model psychoanalyst:despite herown obvious gifts for conversation, she couldbe an extraordinarily attentiveand engagedlistener. Capper tellsus, followingEmerson's

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 138 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY lead, thatin herpresence, ordinary defenses and decorumseemed to drop away.Where Fuller gained this sensitivityremains a mystery, thoughit is myfantasy (assisted by the detailsof Capper'sbiography) thatthe women in her backgroundaided in developingthis aspect of her personality,perhaps as muchas did her broadlydirected reading and translatingskills bequeathed to herby her father. Out of Capper's recognitionof Fuller's empathicrange emerges one of the mostengaging accounts of Fuller's teachingthat I have everread. After her father's death, she assumedhis shareof responsibilityfor the large familyleft behind, and teachingwas one of the earlyways she supportedherself and them.Aligned first with Bronson Alcott,whose experimentaland innovatededucational methods also earnedhim the disdainof many,she wenton to be a centralfigure in Hiram Fuller's Providenceschool and laterto establishher famous seminars,or "Conversations,"in Boston. Capper astutelydescribes Fuller's responsive,demanding, and transformingpedagogical style. Anywoman who has foundherself teaching at theuniversity level will especiallyappreciate his nuancedreading of the sometimesconflict- ing pedagogical imperativesFuller's studentsimposed upon her. Fuller,of course, did nothave the opportunity to teachin a university, thoughher Bostonseminars were oftenaimed at thatlevel: Capper also unveilssome wonderfulnew discoveriesalong the way. I did not knowthat ElizabethCady Stanton,Paulina Davis, or Sarah Sturgis Shaw,the motherof RobertGould Shaw,had been amongFuller's students.Details like this lend a kind of heartbreakingaura to the story,for it remindsthe readerthat Fuller would not be aliveto takea moredirect part in the eventsthese studentswould go on to experience and define.At the same time,these very details challenge us to show stillmore vividly and elaboratelythe influenceher teachingso obviouslyhad. Otherdetails are equallysuggestive and revealing.We learn from Capper,for example, that in herclasses Fuller sometimes had daugh- tersof millowners. Now, I understandwhy I have neverbeen able to findFuller tenderingan opinionabout the Lowell Offeringor the Voice of Industry,two periodicalswritten in the early1840s by mill- workers,including among them membersof the Lowell Female Labor ReformAssociation. I do not,however, thereby endorse Har- riet Martineau'sjudgment that Fuller sometimesfound herself out- side the "real"or significantmovements of her culture.Such a view contradictsFuller's gatheringinterest in class and economicissues worldwideand her concernfor racial prejudice in the UnitedStates.

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Certainlyit is impossibleto read the "Female Department"of the Voice of Industrywithout attending to manyof the same themes foundin Fuller's"Great Lawsuit," the initialversion of Womanin the NineteenthCentury. Neither Fuller nor the Lowellworkers acknowl- edge one anotherdirectly, yet their mutual interests are farfrom ca- sual. Indeed, a historianwould findherself in interestingterritory if she wereto mapout the"fantasies of identity" being reshaped by both the Ladyand the Mill Girlin consistentlyreinforcing ways. Capper providesa strongreading of the complexand strainedrela- tionshipthat developed between Fuller and Martineauafter Mar- tineauvisited the UnitedStates, though once again I foundit more provocativethan complete. One provocatorydetail in particularstruck me: HarrietMartineau was tall. It is of course impossibleto know whatmeaning this fact held forFuller, but I couldn'tresist thinking it bore an uncannyrelation to Fuller'scomplex, and perhapsenduring, responseto Martineau'scritique of Bostonin her Societyin America. When Martineaudescribed the city as one "miredin 'caste,''pedantry' and 'Cant,"' Fuller took exception.Yet manyclues in Capper's ac- countsuggest that she did so by permanentlyabsorbing into herself a small part of Martineau'scritique. The simpleword "cant,"which Martineauso sharplyuses, providestempting support for this thesis, sinceit is a wordthat Fuller deploys rather strikingly in Womanin the NineteenthCentury. There Fullerinserts a quote fromJohn Sterling thataptly captures the responseI am tryingto describe:"Realize your cant,not cast it off."It alwaysseemed to me thatFuller enjoyed the pun on "can't"in Sterling'squotation. Now, I begin to knowmore about the source of that surmise.Bronson Alcott was pilloriedby Martineauas the most "dangerousexample of Boston Cant," and Fuller,who developedmany of her early ideas aboutteaching through her experiencewith him, worked carefully to transformthat fault into a virtue.After reading Capper's deft treatment of Fuller'sfaithful, yet somewhatambivalent, support of Alcott,Fuller's elaboration on the word"cant" in Womanappears a complexdouble homageto Boston and Martineau.Fuller's internalized sense of Martineau'schallenge is onlyspeculation on mypart, though I confessthat the "fact"of Mar- tineau'sheight lured me to it. Introducedearlier to Fuller'stowering mother,I was temptedto imagineboth her parentshovering in the shadow of Martineau'sphysical presence and Fuller drivenby that shadowto namewhat could be done aboutreal social change. Even thoughthe name Zwarg is one vowel away frommeaning "dwarf"in German,there are manytall people in myfamily. (These

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 140 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY too are storiedfacts!) Such informationmay explain why Capper's un- wittingreturn to the issue of heighttickled the fantasyartist in me. If it is temptingto suggestthat Matineau's unusual size stimulated Fuller'scritical faculties, it is stillmore speculative to imagineher responseto thegrand figure of AbrahamLincoln. Such wildimaginings are surelyfictions of identitytoo wobblyto establish,yet they some- timeslead backto somewhatsturdier speculations. Because ofher un- timelydeath, we will neverknow what Fullerwould have done with the critiqueof value being articulated by Lincolnand FrederickDou- glass,yet it is clear fromher interestin the critiqueof value issuing fromsocialist and communistsects in Europe thatan extraordinary mergingof these two interestsmight have resulted.My own desire imaginativelyto constructthat merger enabled me to recognizethat whatFuller had actuallyaccomplished in thisregard during her life- timeneeded to be statedwith more precision. In mywork, I had alreadyelaborated something of that accomplish- mentby describingFuller's "readingbefore Marx" as prolepticand less restrictivethan that which would become knownas Marxism.Yet even thisidea seems too limitedto me now,for one mightas readily saythat Fuller knew how to "readbefore Freud" in thesame provoca- tiveway, since she became increasinglyattentive to whatI wouldlike to call the "workof trauma"at all levelsof culture,both material and psychological.Certainly one thing is true: Fuller's transforming power,her abilityto "realize"the "cant"of culturein manyof itsper- sistentappearances and disguises,emerged through her extraordinary readinghabits and skills.Capper showsus howthese reading skills developed underher father'stutelage and concludesthat her voracious readinghad an unsystematiccharacter because she was nottrained as menwere in the university.While this movement beyond the familiar boundariesof disciplinebecame a virtueand is characteristicof Fuller'sthought, it also explainswhy she has been difficultto readand whyher theoretical relationship to readingis problematicto defineor describe. Writingto a youthful,yet already accomplished, daughter, Timothy Fulleronce advised:

Whenyou have true taste you will read more for the fine sentiments & im- agerythan for the story or narrativeof any work of fiction. In all suchbooks thenarrative being false, is notworth reading for its own sake; but when it is fullof just thoughts & poeticalfigure expressed in elegantstyle, then it is worththe time of thereader. But unfortunately unthinking girls read with preciselythe contrary view-the story is allthey regard all they remember-

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ESSAY REVIEW 141 perhapsmany of them even skip over all suchpassages as interruptthe story a moment.[P. 30]

When TimothyFuller urges his daughterto riseabove whathe takes to be a pettyway of reading,he helps her to resista typeof rotere- sponse.That he choosesto label thisnegative approach feminine may be more of a blessingthan a curse, forFuller is equipped both to value her father'sadvice and to critiquethe easy genderassumption upon whichthat advice depends.One can onlyspeculate how Fuller attained her simultaneouslyaversive and empathic reading style. From Capper'sdescription of the letterswritten by MargarettCrane, however,one can imaginethat Fuller's comfort with this type of dual- ityowes somethingto her mother'sway of viewingthe world.We begin then to see how the storiesfrom Fuller's mother(and her motherbefore her) maybe as importantto our understandingof her as other,more familiar tales of her father'sworld and his influence. Both contributeto Fuller's innovativemethod, which depended al- waysupon locatingthe cant of such advice and realizingits broadest meanings.With this method, this translating skill, Fuller gained the abilityto considerhow traumaticand limitingexperiences might be transformedinto promising possibilities for social change. The quotationalso seems oddlydesigned to assistme withmy responseto thetwo scientists. Had I been able to providethe first ques- tionerwith a richeraccount of the virtues of readingmore deeply into and beyondthe familiarplot lines of a thinker'slife, I mighthave an- sweredthe second questioner by explaining how Fuller was one ofthe firstto articulatethe tieredcomplexity of thistype of reading.For Fuller the activityof readingwas, as I mentionedearlier, less about the conquest of meaningthan about the proliferationof meanings, even conflictingones, since she knew how narrativesoften contain withinthem contradictory or untranslatednews of trauma and desire. Certainlyone way of readingthe worldcannot be allowedto con- quer all others,as it has in manyearly studies of Fuller herself.Be- cause his narrativecontinually invites the readerto workbeyond the materialand the readinghe supplies,Capper provokesnew questions about Fuller.What, for example, can we makeof the deathof Arthur, Fuller'sbrother, killed in the CivilWar onlyhours after volunteering fora dangerousmission on theday of his discharge from the Sixteenth MassachusettsInfantry? Capper tellsus thatArthur was the brother who editedand publishedsome of his sister'swork posthumously. If he editedher writing in a waythat we now findoverly protective, he

This content downloaded from 165.82.124.14 on Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:37:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 142 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY neverthelessappears to have been compelledto live up to his poten- tialby the forceof her language,a forcethat we beginwith Capper's aid to see drivingothers to the same typeof action.Thus Capper's new festivalof "fact"about Fuller's lifebeckons a broaderstory of Fuller's influence.Insofar as it does so, Capper's biographyis prospective,reminding us of Emerson'sfaith that a true accountof Fullerwould provide an "essentialline of Americanhistory" or even, perhaps,an accountof the "true romance which the world exists to realize."

ChristinaZwarg, Associate Professor of Englishat HaverfordCollege, is the author of FEMINIST CONVERSATIONS: FULLER, EMERSON AND THE PLAYOF READING.She is 5feet, 8'/, inches tall.

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