′My God, How I Hated Her!′

Abstract

Margaret Fuller was privileged in her lifetime, from 1810 to 1850 — as a woman editor, essayist, political journalist and arts critic in an otherwise largely male domain — because she was one of the first of her kind. When women began entering the literary lists in greater numbers — after Fuller′s death and partly through her inspiration — she became a greater threat, to be excoriated and exorcised. Yet throughout her life she herself was ambivalent about her critical and creative abilities, saying of herself that ′I have no art′. Such diffidence was further ammunition against her after her death: she was taken at her own modest word by male successors who ′came to praise but also, perhaps unconsciously, to bury her.′²

′My dear Sir,′ I exclaimed, ′if you′d not been afraid Of Margaret Fuller′s success, you′d have stayed Your hand in her case and more justly have rated her.′ Here he murmured morosely, ′My God, how I hated her′!¹