Ossian and James Macpherson

Edinburgh University Press eBooks, 2021

Journal of American Folklore, 2001

The poems of Ossian, as presented to the world of the 18th century by James Macpherson, had an enormous influence on the course of Romanticism and the growth of folkloristics through key figures such as Johann Gottfried Herder. Controversy still surrounds the compilation of the poems because of Macpherson’s free use of source material. The question of "authenticity" was the original reason for attacks on Macpherson and his methods, but in the present context of concern for the nature and study of folklore, this issue seems less important than Macpherson’s own complex personality and motives, which involve not only his shifting identity but also his attitude toward his sources and his English-language audience, and shed light, as well, on the process of "recomposition" and on the difficulty of "translating" cultural meanings.

EGO European History Online, 2015

The Poems of Ossian are a unique phenomenon in European literary history. They have been referred to as a "pseudotranslation" and effectively discarded from the canon, to which they undoubtedly belonged to for a hundred years, yet their monumental influence on literature, visual art and music is undeniable. The poems were certainly not a translation of one single text but an editoral construct which on its own shook the literary system of the late 18th century to its foundations and helped usher in Romantic notions of poetry, in addition to turning the focus definitely to the native productions of the people in each country or area. The number of translations and imitations of several degrees underlines the huge creative impulse of the poems, which can be seen as a major paradigm shift in the outlook of what is called high culture literature. "The Poems of Ossian" and the New National Epic When James Macpherson (1736-1796) published his small volume, Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Galic or Erse Language 1 [ ] in the summer of 1760 he may have had a young man's hopes of becoming known as a man of letters, at least in Scotland. Nothing could have been more wrong, since he became famous, infamous, lionised and detested in the course of a few years, and not only in his own country, Great Britain, but all over Europe and beyond. Moreover, his financially rewarding rise from poor schoolteacher in the Highlands of Scotland to intellectual, servant of the empire and MP is more reminiscent of a modern celebrity than the career of a "man of letters" in the 18th century. 2

Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2008

Siiblimr savage: a study ofJames Macpherson and the porrns of Ossian (Edinburgh, Edinburgh IJniversity Press 1988), p.183; and Howard D. Weinbrot. Britannia's issue: the rise of British Literaturr from Dryden to Ossian (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1993). p.481-556. Weinbrot writes: 'Ossian also suggests the triumph of English power within the British nation. for whatever fame Macpherson achieves in Scotland and even Europe. his financial destiny and literary and moral reputation depended upon the South' (p.529). British joirrnalfor eighteenth-century studilics L L (1~9~). p.155-71

The late eighteenth century represents an important phase in British literary and cultural history. Many scholars have located this period as a point of transformation between the ages of Enlightenment and Romanticism, the first dominated by rationalism and scientific enquiry, the second keener to embrace the human senses and emotions. It was upon this cultural stage that James Macpherson launched his translations of the supposedly ancient Scottish bard Ossian in the early 1760s. The poems told of the exploits of ancient Celtic heroes in the third century, particularly the mighty victories they had won over their enemies and Ossian"s own sense of longing for a return to that glorious age. Initially Macpherson"s poems took Britain by storm, running through a considerable number of editions in London as well as Scotland and Ireland, and leaving the country gripped in the throes of Celtomania. Soon however suspicions were aroused. Questions were raised regarding the poems authenticity, particularly when Macpherson failed time and again to produce the original copies of the ancient manuscripts from which he claimed to be working. Gradually critical opinion became more and more scathing. A report by the Highland Society in 1805 concluded that Macpherson had concocted the vast majority of the poems himself, and by the end of the nineteenth century Ossian had been largely forgotten in Britain. 1

It's a comparison between Macpherson's Poems of Ossian and its first translation in Italian by Abbot M. Cesarotti

Studies in Scottish Literature, 2001