Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome

Transcendentalist New England was animated by utopian dreams throughout the 1840s, but even as she occupied its intellectual center, Margaret Fuller stood apart from these enthusiastic projections. Instead, she expressed skepticism of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, predicting empty rhetoric and certain...

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Main Author: Leslie Elizabeth Eckel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2016-06-01
Series:Transatlantica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/7754
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author Leslie Elizabeth Eckel
author_facet Leslie Elizabeth Eckel
author_sort Leslie Elizabeth Eckel
collection DOAJ
description Transcendentalist New England was animated by utopian dreams throughout the 1840s, but even as she occupied its intellectual center, Margaret Fuller stood apart from these enthusiastic projections. Instead, she expressed skepticism of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, predicting empty rhetoric and certain failure. As she moved onward to New York and then to Europe, Fuller’s thinking and writing became more and more utopian, fired by the revolutionary impulses at work in France and Italy in the years leading up to 1848. Ancient Rome, once a source of rigid discipline in Fuller’s childhood, became a place of Romantic possibility as she advocated for the cause of the Roman Republic. Unexpectedly aligning herself with Henry David Thoreau’s efforts to give utopianism new roots in his bean field at Walden Pond, Fuller embraced the radicalism of her own transatlantic experiment, hoping for a wider world of innocence born from Transcendental experience.
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spelling doaj-art-e9288585932f4e9eb51cab4939cd78402025-01-30T10:42:56ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662016-06-01210.4000/transatlantica.7754Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian RomeLeslie Elizabeth EckelTranscendentalist New England was animated by utopian dreams throughout the 1840s, but even as she occupied its intellectual center, Margaret Fuller stood apart from these enthusiastic projections. Instead, she expressed skepticism of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, predicting empty rhetoric and certain failure. As she moved onward to New York and then to Europe, Fuller’s thinking and writing became more and more utopian, fired by the revolutionary impulses at work in France and Italy in the years leading up to 1848. Ancient Rome, once a source of rigid discipline in Fuller’s childhood, became a place of Romantic possibility as she advocated for the cause of the Roman Republic. Unexpectedly aligning herself with Henry David Thoreau’s efforts to give utopianism new roots in his bean field at Walden Pond, Fuller embraced the radicalism of her own transatlantic experiment, hoping for a wider world of innocence born from Transcendental experience.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/7754RomanticismMargaret FullerutopianismTranscendentalismAncient RomeRoman Revolution
spellingShingle Leslie Elizabeth Eckel
Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
Transatlantica
Romanticism
Margaret Fuller
utopianism
Transcendentalism
Ancient Rome
Roman Revolution
title Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
title_full Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
title_fullStr Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
title_full_unstemmed Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
title_short Radical Innocence: Margaret Fuller’s Utopian Rome
title_sort radical innocence margaret fuller s utopian rome
topic Romanticism
Margaret Fuller
utopianism
Transcendentalism
Ancient Rome
Roman Revolution
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/7754
work_keys_str_mv AT leslieelizabetheckel radicalinnocencemargaretfullersutopianrome