오늘은 또 "The Lives of Margaret Fuller"를

.

 

오늘도 도서관 라운지에 들어서자 먼저

서가에 처음 보는 책이 있나 살펴본다.

John Matteson의 "The Lives of Margaret Fuller."

 

Charles Dickens의 시대에는 또 George Eliot이 있었듯

Emerson의 시대에는 또 Margaret Fuller가 있었지.

 

책을 아무렇게나 펼쳐서 읽어본다:

 

   In at least three crucial respects, Goethe responded to and confirmed the tenor of Fuller's mind. To begin with, unlike Coleridge and his followers, Goethe had no taste for unifying abstractions. Instead of reaching vainly for a theory that would unite all fields of knowledge, he wanted to understand every distinct phenomenon by its own terms. Like Fuller's, his was an intellect not of the one but of the many. Second, while Goethe notoriously declined to make general pronouncements about the meaning of life, he did, near the end of Faust, Part Two, place in the mouths of a chorus of angels the following statement on salvation: "Whoever strives with all his power, we are allowed to save." These words, as philosopher Walter Kaufmann has stated, summarized Goethe's own ethic of existence; he was "imbued with the relentless determination to educate himself and give form to himself." This pivotal idea, that man may save himself not only through faith, hope, and charity, but also through a ceaseless drive toward self-perfection, became an article of faith for many in the Romantic generation. For Fuller, who had already concluded that the highest object of life was perpetual growth, Goethe's ethic of eternal striving was ready-made.

   Finally, and perhaps most important, Goethe was, for the time, unusually aware of the obstacles and dead ends that awaited women of genius and ambition.... (p. 87)

 

충분히 재미있을 것 같다. 본문이 450쪽, 묵직한 느낌도 좋다.

오늘은 또 이 책을 산다.

 

머핀이나 스콘 하나 값이지만

한 번 더 생각하고 사는 것은

한동안 계속 책을 도서관에 기증해서 낮춘

집 소파와 커피탁자 위 책탑들

다시 무너질듯 높아진 때문이다. 

 

(Sept. 21, 2026)

 

 

 

John Matteson, "The Lives of Margaret Fuller" (2012)