Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of Fallen French Heroes, Anne-Louis Girodet, 1805

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 furor over the authenticity of the poems continued into the 20th century.

[edit] The poems

Ossian's Dream, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1813

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.^[1]

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".^[2]

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 Johann Wolfgang 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. ^[3]

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. ^[4]

In Italy the translation of Ossian by Melchiore Cesarotti made that work highly popular, and among others it influenced Ugo Foscolo who was Cesarotti's pupil in the University of Padua.

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.

[edit] Authenticity debate

Ossian, by François Pascal Simon Gérard

Ossian in Ossian's Hall, Dunkeld.

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 had no knowledge of the Scottish Gaelic language or of the Gaelic tradition. Johnson 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."

Faced with the controversy, the Committee of the Highland Society enquired after the authenticity of Macpherson's supposed original. It was thanks to these circumstances that the so-called Glenmasan manuscript (Adv. 72.2.3) came to light, a compilation which contains the tale Oided mac n-Uisnig.

This text is a version of the Irish Longes mac n-Uislenn and offers a tale which bears some comparison to Macpherson's "Darthula", although it is radically different in many respects. Donald Smith cited it in his report for the Committee.^[5]

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 Johnson concluded ^[6], 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.

In 1952 Derick Thomson concluded that Macpherson had collected Scottish Gaelic ballads, employing scribes to record those that were preserved orally and collating manuscripts, but had adapted them by altering the original characters and ideas, and had introduced a great deal of his own.^[7]

[edit] Editions

• 1996: The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press).

[edit] Notes

Ossian's Cave at The Hermitage in Dunkeld, Scotland.

[edit] References

• George F. Black, Macpherson's Ossian and the Ossianic Controversy, New York, (1926).
• Patrick MacGregor, M.A., The Genuine Remains of Ossian, Literally Translated, Highland Society of London, (1841)

[edit] See also

• Ossian's Hall of Mirrors
• Petrosomatoglyph

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ossian

• The Poetical Works of Ossian Full text at Ex-Classics
• Selected Bibliography: James Macpherson and Ossian Excellent online bibliography; compiled by designated experts in the field; covering the most important scholarly monographs and articles on Ossian and Macpherson up to March 2004.
• Literary Encyclopedia: Ossian
• Significant Scots - James MacPherson
• Popular Tales of the West Highlands by J. F. Campbell Volume IV (1890)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, discussion in entries for 22 and 23 September 1773.
• Calum Colvin: "Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry" Reproduction of the cycle of paintings "Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry" (2002) by one of Scotland's most renowned contemporary artist, Calum Colvin. (under category "exhibitions")