Everything about Ossian totally explained
Ossian is the narrator, and supposed author, of a cycle of poems which the
Scottish poet
James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the
Scots Gaelic. He is based on
Oisín, son of Finn or
Fionn mac Cumhaill, a character from
Irish mythology. The furore over the authenticity of the poems continued into the 20th century.
The poems
In
1760 Macpherson published the English-language text
Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and later that year obtained further manuscripts. In 1761 he claimed to have found an
epic on the subject of the hero Fingal, written by Ossian. The name Fingal or
Fionnghall means "white stranger". He published translations of it during the next few years, culminating in a collected edition;
The Works of Ossian, in
1765. The most famous of these poems was
Fingal written in
1762. The poems achieved international success (even
Napoleon became a great fan) and were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the
Classical writers such as
Homer. Many writers were influenced by the works, including the young
Walter Scott and the German writer
J.W. von Goethe, whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson's work figures prominently in a climactic scene of
The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe's associate
Johann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titled
Extract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples in the early days of the
Sturm und Drang movement. The poem was as much admired in Hungary as in France and Germany; Hungarian János Arany wrote "Homer and Ossian" in response, and several other Hungarian writers - Baróti Szabó, Csokonai, Sándor Kisfaludy, Kazinczy, Kölcsey, Ferenc Toldy, and Ágost Greguss, were also influenced by it.
The poems also exerted an influence on the burgeoning of
Romantic music, and
Franz Schubert in particular composed
Lieder setting many of Ossian's poems.
Authenticity debate
There were immediate disputes about Macpherson's claims, for literary and political reasons. Macpherson promoted a Scottish origin for the material, and was hotly opposed by
Irish historians who felt that their heritage was being appropriated. However, both Scotland and Ireland shared a common Gaelic culture during the period in which the poems are set and some
Fenian literature common in both countries was composed in Scotland.
A great detractor of the Ossian poems was
Samuel Johnson who believed that they were not only not authentic, but were, moreover, not even good poetry. Upon being asked, "But Doctor Johnson, do you really believe that any man today could write such poetry?" he famously replied, "Yes. Many men. Many women. And many children."
The controversy raged on into the early years of the 19th century, with disputes as to whether the poems were based on Irish sources, on sources in English, on Gaelic fragments woven into his own composition as
Samuel Johnson concluded, or largely on Scots Gaelic oral traditions and manuscripts as Macpherson claimed. Scottish author,
Hugh Blair's 1763
A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian upheld the work's authenticity against Johnson's scathing criticism and from 1765 was included in every edition of
Ossian to lend the work credibility.
Derick Thomson, in Thomson (1952) found that Macpherson had indeed collected Scottish Gaelic Ossianic
ballads, but had adapted them to contemporary sensibilities by altering the original characters and ideas, and had introduced a great deal of his own.
Editions
- 1996: The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ossian'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ossian.totallyexplained.com">Ossian Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
