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Ossian

Ossian (/ˈɒʃən, ˈɒsiən/; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: Oisean) is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763),[1] and later combined under the title The Poems of Ossian. Macpherson claimed to have collected word-of-mouth material in Scottish Gaelic, said to be from ancient sources, and that the work was his translation of that material. Ossian is based on Oisín, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill (anglicised to Finn McCool),[2] a legendary bard in Irish mythology. Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work's authenticity, but the current consensus is that Macpherson largely composed the poems himself, drawing in part on traditional Gaelic poetry he had collected.[3]

Ossian Singing, Nicolai Abildgaard, 1787

The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic movement and the Gaelic revival. Macpherson's fame was crowned by his burial among the literary giants in Westminster Abbey. W. P. Ker, in the Cambridge History of English Literature, observes that "all Macpherson's craft as a philological impostor would have been nothing without his literary skill."[4]

Poems edit

 
Ossian and Malvina, by Johann Peter Krafft, 1810.

In 1760, Macpherson published the English-language text Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Gaelic or Erse language.[5] Later that year, he claimed to have obtained further manuscripts and, in 1761, he claimed to have found an epic on the subject of the hero Fingal (with Fingal or Fionnghall meaning 'white stranger'[6]), written by Ossian. According to Macpherson's prefatory material, his publisher, claiming that there was no market for these works except in English, required that they be translated. Macpherson published these alleged translations during the next few years, culminating in a collected edition, The Works of Ossian, in 1765. The most famous of these Ossianic poems was Fingal, written in 1761 and dated 1762.

The supposed original poems are translated into poetic prose, with short and simple sentences. The mood is epic, but there is no single narrative, although the same characters reappear. The main characters are Ossian himself, relating the stories when old and blind, his father Fingal (very loosely based on the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill), his dead son Oscar (also with an Irish counterpart), and Oscar's lover Malvina (like Fiona a name invented by Macpherson), who looks after Ossian in his old age. Though the stories "are of endless battles and unhappy loves", the enemies and causes of strife are given little explanation and context.[7]

Characters are given to killing loved ones by mistake, and dying of grief, or of joy. There is very little information given on the religion, culture or society of the characters, and buildings are hardly mentioned. The landscape "is more real than the people who inhabit it. Drowned in eternal mist, illuminated by a decrepit sun or by ephemeral meteors, it is a world of greyness."[7] Fingal is king of a region of south-west Scotland perhaps similar to the historical kingdom of Dál Riata and the poems appear to be set around the 3rd century, with the "king of the world" mentioned being the Roman Emperor; Macpherson and his supporters detected references to Caracalla (d. 217, as "Caracul") and Carausius (d. 293, as "Caros", the "king of ships").[8]

Reception and influence edit

The poems achieved international success. Napoleon and Diderot were prominent admirers, and Voltaire was known to have written parodies of them.[9] Thomas Jefferson thought Ossian "the greatest poet that has ever existed",[10] and planned to learn Gaelic so as to read his poems in the original.[11] They were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical writers such as Homer. "The genuine remains of Ossian ... are in many respects of the same stamp as the Iliad", was Thoreau's opinion.[12] Many writers were influenced by the works, including Walter Scott, and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects.

The Hungarian national poet Sándor Petőfi wrote a poem entitled Homer and Ossian, comparing the two authors, of which the first verse reads:

Oh where are you Hellenes and Celts?
Already you have vanished, like
Two cities drowning
In the waters of the deep.
Only the tips of towers stand out from the water,
Two tips of towers: Homer, Ossian.

Despite its doubtful authenticity, the Ossian cycle popularized Scottish national mythology across Europe, and became one of the earliest and most popular texts that inspired romantic nationalist movements over the following century. European historians agree that the Ossian poems and their vision of mythical Scotland spurred the emergence of enlightened patriotism on the continent and played a foundational role in the making of modern European nationalism.[1]

The cycle had less impact in the British Isles. Samuel Johnson held it up as "another proof of Scotch conspiracy in national falsehood", while the Irish objected to what they saw as Macpherson's misappropriation of their own traditions. David Hume eventually withdrew his initial support of Macpherson and quipped that he could not accept the claimed authenticity of the poems even if "fifty bare-arsed Highlanders" vouched for it. By the early 19th century, the cycle came to play a limited role in Scottish patriotic rhetoric.[1]

Authenticity debate edit

 
Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora, by François Pascal Simon Gérard, 1801

There were immediate disputes of Macpherson's claims on both literary and political grounds. 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.

Samuel Johnson, English author, critic, and biographer, was convinced that Macpherson was "a mountebank, a liar, and a fraud, and that the poems were forgeries".[13] Johnson also dismissed the poems' quality. 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." Johnson is cited as calling the story of Ossian "as gross an imposition as ever the world was troubled with".[14] In support of his claim, Johnson also called Gaelic the rude speech of a barbarous people, and said there were no manuscripts in it more than 100 years old. In reply, it was proved that the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh contained Gaelic manuscripts 500 years old, and one of even greater antiquity.[15]

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. The work also had a timely resonance for those swept away by the emerging Romantic movement and the theory of the "noble savage", and it echoed the popularity of Burke's seminal A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757).[16]

In 1766, the Irish antiquarian and Gaelic scholar Charles O'Conor dismissed Ossian's authenticity in a new chapter Remarks on Mr. Mac Pherson's translation of Fingal and Temora that he added to the second edition of his seminal history.[17] In 1775, he expanded his criticism in a new book, Dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots.

 
Ossian's Cave at The Hermitage in Dunkeld, Scotland

Faced with the controversy, the Committee of the Highland Society enquired after the authenticity of Macpherson's supposed original. It was because of these circumstances that the so-called Glenmasan manuscript (Adv. 72.2.3) came to light in the late 18th century, 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.[18]

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,[19] or largely on Scots Gaelic oral traditions and manuscripts as Macpherson claimed. In the late 19th century, it was demonstrated that the only "original" Gaelic manuscripts that Macpherson produced for the poems were in fact back-translations of his work from English.[3] During the same period, Peter Hately Waddell defended the authenticity of the poems, arguing in Ossian and the Clyde (1875) that the poems contained topographical references that could not have been known to Macpherson.[20]

In 1952, the Scottish literary scholar Derick Thomson investigated the sources for Macpherson's work and concluded that Macpherson had collected genuine 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.[21]

According to historians Colin Kidd and James Coleman, Fingal (1761, dated 1762) was indebted to traditional Gaelic poetry composed in the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as to Macpherson's "own creativity and editorial laxity", while the second epic Temora (1763) was largely his own creation.[1]

Translations and adaptations edit

One poem was translated into French in 1762, and, by 1777, the whole corpus.[22] In the German-speaking states Michael Denis made the first full translation in 1768–69, inspiring the proto-nationalist poets Klopstock and Goethe, whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson's work figures prominently in a climactic scene of The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).[23][24] Goethe's associate Johann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titled Extract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples (1773) in the early days of the Sturm und Drang movement.

Complete Danish translations were made in 1790, and Swedish ones in 1794–1800. In Scandinavia and Germany the Celtic nature of the setting was ignored or not understood, and Ossian was regarded as a Nordic or Germanic figure who became a symbol for nationalist aspirations.[25] In 1799, the French general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte named his only son Oscar after the character from Ossian, at the suggestion of Napoleon, the child's godfather and an admirer of Ossian.[22] Bernadotte later was made King of Sweden and Norway. In 1844, his son became King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway, who was, in turn, succeeded by his sons Charles XV and Oscar II (d. 1907). "Oscar" being a royal name led to its becoming also a common male first name, especially in Scandinavia but also in other European countries.

Melchiore Cesarotti was an Italian clergyman whose translation into Italian is said by many to improve on the original, and was a tireless promoter of the poems, in Vienna and Warsaw as well as Italy. It was his translation that Napoleon especially admired,[22] and among others it influenced Ugo Foscolo, who was Cesarotti's pupil in the University of Padua.

 
The Dream of Ossian, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1813
 
The Songs of Ossian, ink and watercolours, Ingres, 1811–13

British composer Harriet Wainwright premiered her opera Comala, based on text by Ossian, in London in 1792.

The first partial Polish translation of Ossian was made by Ignacy Krasicki in 1793. The complete translation appeared in 1838 by Seweryn Goszczyński.

By 1800, Ossian was translated into Spanish and Russian, with Dutch following in 1805, and Polish, Czech and Hungarian in 1827–33.[22] The poems were 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.[26]

The opera Ossian, ou Les bardes by Jean-François Le Sueur (with the famous, multimedial scene of "Ossian's Dream") was a sell-out at the Paris Opera in 1804, and transformed the composer's career. 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. In 1829 Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to visit the Hebrides and composed the Hebrides Overture, also known as Fingal's Cave. His friend Niels Gade devoted his first published work, the concert overture Efterklange af Ossian ("Echoes of Ossian") written in 1840, to the same subject.

Gaelic studies edit

Macpherson's Ossian made a strong impression on Dugald Buchanan (1716–68), a Perthshire poet whose celebrated Spiritual Hymns are written in a Scots Gaelic of a high quality that to some extent reflects the Classical Gaelic literary language once common to the bards of both Ireland and Scotland. Buchanan, taking the poems of Ossian to be authentic, was moved to revalue the genuine traditions and rich cultural heritage of the Gaels. At around the same time, he wrote to Sir James Clerk of Penicuik, the leading antiquary of the movement, proposing that someone should travel to the isles and western coast of Scotland and collect the work of the ancient and modern bards, in which alone he could find the language in its purity.

Much later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, this task was taken up by collectors such as Alexander Carmichael[27] and Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray,[28] and to be recorded and continued by the work of the School of Scottish Studies and the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society.

In art edit

Subjects from the Ossian poems were popular in the art of northern Europe, but at rather different periods depending on the country; by the time French artists began to depict Ossian, British artists had largely dropped him. Ossian was especially popular in Danish art, but also found in Germany and the rest of Scandinavia.

Britain, Germany and Scandinavia edit

British artists began to depict the Ossian poems early on, with the first major work a cycle of paintings decorating the ceiling the "Grand Hall" of Penicuik House in Midlothian, built by Sir James Clerk, who commissioned the paintings in 1772. These were by the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman but were lost when the house burnt down in 1899, though drawings and etchings survive, and two pamphlets describing them were published in the 18th century.[29] A subject from Ossian by Angelica Kauffman was shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1773, and Ossian was depicted in Elysium, part of the Irish painter James Barry's magnum opus decorating the Royal Society of Arts, at the Adelphi Buildings in London (still in situ).[30]

 
Fingal Sees the Ghosts of His Ancestors in the Moonlight, Nicolai Abildgaard, 1778

Works on paper by Thomas Girtin and John Sell Cotman have survived, though the Ossianic landscapes by George Augustus Wallis, which the Ossian fan August Wilhelm Schlegel praised in a letter to Goethe, seem to have been lost, as has a picture by J. M. W. Turner exhibited in 1802. Henry Singleton exhibited paintings, some of which were engraved and used in editions of the poems.[31]

A fragment by Novalis, written in 1789, refers to Ossian as an inspired, holy and poetical singer.[32]

The Danish painter Nicolai Abildgaard, director of the Copenhagen Academy from 1789, painted several scenes from Ossian, as did his pupils, including Asmus Jacob Carstens.[33] His friend Joseph Anton Koch painted a number of subjects, and two large series of illustrations for the poems, which never got properly into print; like many Ossianic works by Wallis, Carstens, Krafft and others, some of these were painted in Rome, perhaps not the best place to evoke the dim northern light of the poems. In Germany the request in 1804 to produce some drawings as illustrations so excited Philipp Otto Runge that he planned a series of 100, far more than asked for, in a style heavily influenced by the linear illustrations of John Flaxman; these remain as drawings only.[34] Many other German works are recorded, some as late as the 1840s;[35] word of the British scepticism over the Ossian poems was slow to penetrate the continent, or considered irrelevant.

France edit

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

In France the enthusiasm of Napoleon for the poems accounts for most artistic depictions, and those by the most famous artists, but a painting exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1800 by Paul Duqueylar (now Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence) excited Les Barbus ("the Bearded Ones") a group of primitivist artists including Pierre-Maurice Quays (or Quaï) who promoted living in the style of "early civilizations as described in Homer, Ossian, and the Bible".[36] Quays is reported as saying: "Homère? Ossian? ... le soleil? la lune? Voilà la question. En vérité, je crois que je préfère la lune. C'est plus simple, plus grand, plus primitif". ("Homer? Ossian? ... the sun? the moon? That's the question. Truthfully I think I prefer the moon. It's more simple, more grand, more primitive").[37] The same year Napoleon was planning the renovation of the Château de Malmaison as a summer palace, and though he does not seem to have suggested Ossianic subjects for his painters, two large and significant works were among those painted for the reception hall, for which six artists had been commissioned.

 
Malvina or The Death of Malvina, by Ary Scheffer (see literature), c. 1802, musée Auguste Grasset, Varzy
 
Study by Girodet for his Ossian painting, 1801, Louvre

These were Girodet's painting of 1801–02 Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, and Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora (1801), by François Pascal Simon Gérard. Gérard's original was lost in a shipwreck after being bought by the King of Sweden after the fall of Napoleon, but survives in three replicas by the artist (a further one in Berlin was lost in 1945). One is now at Malmaison (184.5 × 194.5 cm / 72.6 × 76.6 in), and the Kunsthalle Hamburg has another (180.5 × 198.5 cm). A watercolour copy by Jean-Baptiste Isabey was placed as frontispiece to Napoleon's copy of the poems.[38][39][40]

Duqueylar, Girodet and Gérard, like Johann Peter Krafft (above) and most of the Barbus, were all pupils of David, and the clearly unclassical subjects of the Ossian poems were useful for emergent French Romantic painting, marking a revolt against David's Neoclassical choice of historical subject-matter. David's recorded reactions to the paintings were guarded or hostile; he said of Girodet's work: "Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting".[41]

Girodet's painting (still at Malmaison; 192.5 × 184 cm) was a succès de scandale when exhibited in 1802, and remains a key work in the emergence of French Romantic painting, but the specific allusions to the political situation that he intended it to carry were largely lost on the public, and overtaken by the Peace of Amiens with Great Britain, signed in 1802 between the completion and exhibition of the work.[42][43] He also produced Malvina dying in the arms of Fingal (c. 1802), and other works.

Another pupil of David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, was to depict Ossianic scenes over most of his long career. He made a drawing in 1809, when studying in Rome, and in 1810 or 1811 was commissioned to make two paintings, The Dream of Ossian and a classical scene, to decorate the bedroom Napoleon was to occupy in the Palazzo Quirinale on a visit to Rome. In fact the visit never came off and in 1835 Ingres repurchased the work, now in poor condition.

 
Wilbur Woodward, Ossian. Salon de 1880. Photo: Jamie Mulherron

The American painter based in Paris Wilbur Winfield Woodward exhibited an Ossian at the 1880 Salon.[44]

Editions edit

National Library of Scotland has 327 books and associated materials in its Ossian Collection. The collection was originally assembled by J. Norman Methven of Perth and includes different editions and translations of James Macpherson's epic poem 'Ossian', some with a map of the 'Kingdom of Connor'. It also contains secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy. More than 200 items from the collection have been digitised.[45]

Below are some other online editions of interest and recent works:

  • 1760: Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh second edition.
  • 1803: The Poems of Ossian in two volumes, an illustrated edition - Vol.I, Vol.II (London: Lackington, Allen and co.)
  • 1887: Poems of Ossian: Literally translated from the Gaelic, in the original measure of verse by Peter McNaughton (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons).
  • 1888: Poems of Ossian translated by James Macpherson, a pocket reprint of the 1773 edition omitting the four last poems (London: Walter Scott)
  • 1996: The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford (Edinburgh University Press).
  • 2004: Ossian and Ossianism, Dafydd Moore, a 4-volume edition of Ossianic works and a collection of varied responses (London: Routledge). This includes facsimiles of the Ossian works, contemporary and later responses, contextual letters and reviews, and later adaptations.
  • 2011: Blind Ossian's Fingal : fragments and controversy, a reprint of the first edition and abridgement of the follow-up with new material by Allan and Linda Burnett (Edinburgh: Luath Press Ltd).
  • 2021: Ossian: Warrior Poet, an edited and illustrated edition of the Poems with a new introduction and index by Scottish artist Eileen Budd (Windermere: Wide Open Sea Press).

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c d Kidd, Colin; Coleman, James (2012). "Mythical Scotland". In T. M. Devine, Jenny Wormald (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History. Oxford University Press. pp. 67–70. ISBN 978-0-19-956369-2.
  2. ^ Rainbolt, Dawn (8 March 2017). "Finn McCool & the Giant's Causeway". Wilderness Ireland. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Ossian". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  4. ^ In The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. 10 "The Age of Johnson": "The Literary Influence of the Middle Ages" p. 228.
  5. ^ "Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland", Literary Encyclopedia, 2004, retrieved 27 December 2006
  6. ^ Behind the Name: View Name: Fingal
  7. ^ a b Okun 1967, p. 328.
  8. ^ "A Dissertation concerning the Aera of Ossian", published as prefatory matter in later editions of the poems.
  9. ^ Howard Gaskill, The reception of Ossian in Europe (2004)
  10. ^ Quoted in Carpenter, Frederick (1930–1931). "The Vogue of Ossian in America". American Literature. 2: 405–17. doi:10.2307/2920160. JSTOR 2920160.
  11. ^ Wilson, Douglas L., ed. (1989). Thomas Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 172. ISBN 0691047200. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  12. ^ Thoreau, Henry David. Thoreau: Collected Essays and Poems. The Library of America. p. 141. ISBN 1-883011-95-7
  13. ^ Magnusson 2006, p. 340
  14. ^ Introduction of Robert Fagles' translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey
  15. ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainRipley, George; Dana, Charles A., eds. (1879). "Ossian" . The American Cyclopædia.
  16. ^ J. Buchan, Crowded with Genius (London: Harper Collins, 2003), ISBN 0-06-055888-1, p. 163.
  17. ^ O'Conor, C. Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland (1753) (Copy at Ex-Classics)
  18. ^ MacKinnon, Donald (1905), "The Glenmasan Manuscript", The Celtic Review, 1 (6): 3–17, doi:10.2307/30069764, JSTOR 30069764
  19. ^ , Florida Bibliophile Society, archived from the original on 26 July 2011, retrieved 9 April 2010
  20. ^ "Waddell, Peter Hately". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–19.
  21. ^ Thomson, Derick (1952), The Gaelic Sources of Macpherson's 'Ossian'
  22. ^ a b c d Okun 1967, p. 330.
  23. ^ Berresford Ellis 1987, p. 159
  24. ^ Arnold M. Thor, myth to marvel; Continuum Publishing, 2011, pp92-97.
  25. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 330, 339.
  26. ^ Oszkár, Elek (1933), "Ossian-kultusz Magyarországon", Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny (LVII): 66–76
  27. ^ Carmina Gadelica, Alexander Carmichael, printed by T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh, 1900.
  28. ^ Tales from Highland Perthshire, collected by Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray, translated and edited by Sylvia Robertson and Tony Dilworth, Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, Volume 20, 2009.
  29. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 331–334.
  30. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 334–335.
  31. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 336–338.
  32. ^ Schmidt 2003, p. 976.
  33. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 339–341.
  34. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 338–345.
  35. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 335–346.
  36. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 346–347.
  37. ^ Rubin 1976, p. 383.
  38. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 347–348.
  39. ^ Rubin 1976, pp. 384–386 and throughout on the variety of titles by which the work has been known
  40. ^ [Ossian evokes ghosts to the sound of the harp on the banks of the Lora river]. musees-nationaux-napoleoniens.org (in French). 7 March 2004. Archived from the original on 5 July 2007.
  41. ^ Honour 1968, pp. 184–190, 187 quoted.
  42. ^ Okun 1967, pp. 349–351.
  43. ^ [The Apotheosis of French Heroes who died for their country during the War of Freedom]. musees-nationaux-napoleoniens.org (in French). 7 March 2004. Archived from the original on 5 September 2008. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  44. ^ Salon 1880, no. 3921, p. 386
  45. ^ "Ossian Collection: Selected books from the Ossian Collection of 327 volumes, originally assembled by J. Norman Methven of Perth. Different editions and translations of James MacPherson's epic poem 'Ossian', some with a map of the 'Kingdom of Connor'. Also secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy". Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 23 March 2014.

References edit

  • Berresford Ellis, Peter (1987), A Dictionary of Irish Mythology, Constable, ISBN 0-09-467540-6
  • Gaskill, Howard. (ed.) The reception of Ossian in Europe London: Continuum, 2004 ISBN 0-8264-6135-2
  • Honour, Hugh (1968). Neo-classicism. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-020978-6. OCLC 647678269 – via Internet Archive.
  • Kristmannsson, Gauti, Ossian, the European National Epic (1760-1810), EGO - European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2015, retrieved: March 8, 2021 (pdf).
  • Magnusson, Magnus (2006), Fakers, Forgers & Phoneys, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, ISBN 1-84596-190-0
  • Moore, Dafydd. Enlightenment and Romance in James Macpherson's the Poems of Ossian: Myth, Genre and Cultural Change (Studies in Early Modern English Literature) (2003)
  • Okun, Henry (1 January 1967). "Ossian in Painting". Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. University of Chicago Press. 30 (1): 327–356. doi:10.2307/750749. ISSN 0075-4390. JSTOR 750749. S2CID 195003210.
  • Rubin, James Henry (1976). "Gérard's Painting of "Ossian" as an Allegory of Inspired Art". Studies in Romanticism. JSTOR. 15 (3): 383–394. doi:10.2307/25600033. ISSN 0039-3762. JSTOR 25600033.
  • Hanselaar, Saskia, "La Mort de Malvina du musée Auguste Grasset à Varzy : une œuvre de jeunesse réattribuée à Ary Scheffer", La Revue des musées de France – Revue du Louvre, LXIe année, octobre 2011, n°4, p. 87–96.
  • Schmidt, Wolf Gerhard (31 December 2003). Gaskill, Howard; Gaskill, Howard (eds.). "Homer des Nordens" und "Mutter der Romantik", Bd. 1: James Macphersons Ossian, zeitgenössische Diskurse und die Frühphase der deutschen Rezeption, Bd. 2: Die Haupt- und Spätphase der deutschen Rezeption. Bibliographie internationaler Quellentexte und Forschungsliteratur ["Homer of the North" and "Mother of Romanticism", Vol. 1: James Macpherson's Ossian, contemporary discourses and the early phase of German reception, Vol. 2: The main and late phase of German reception. Bibliography of international source texts and research literature] (in German). De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110926569. ISBN 978-3-11-017924-8. OCLC 979594707.
  • Thomson, Derick Smith. "The Gaelic Sources of Macpherson's 'Ossian'", (1951), Aberdeen University Press

Further reading edit

  • Black, George F. (1926), Macpherson's Ossian and the Ossianic Controversy, New York{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • MacGregor, Patrick (1841), The Genuine Remains of Ossian, Literally Translated, Highland Society of London
  • Porter, James (2019). Beyond Fingal's cave : Ossian in the musical imagination. Rochester. ISBN 978-1-78744-462-1. OCLC 1104139334.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
in French
  • Collectif, La Légende d'Ossian illustrée par Girodet, catalogue de l'exposition du même nom organisée par les musées de Montargis, Montargis, Musée Girodet, 1988.
  • Gluck, Denise, Ossian et l'ossianisme, dans Hier pour demain, Arts, Tradition et Patrimoine, catalogue de l'exposition du Grand Palais, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980.
  • Hanselaar, Saskia, Ossian ou l'Esthétique des Ombres : une génération d'artistes français à la veille du Romantisme (1793–1833), PhD, dir. S. Le Men, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense, 2008.
  • Soubigou, Gilles, Ossian et les Barbus: primitivisme et retirement du monde sous le Directoire, in Renoncer à l'art. Figures du romantisme et des années 1970 (Julie Ramos, ed.), Paris, Roven, 2014, pp. 85–105.
  • Van Thieghem, Paul, Ossian en France, Paris, Rieder, 1917.

External links edit

  • Digitised version of Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Galic or Erse language, published 1760 at National Library of Scotland
  • The Poetical Works of Ossian Full text at Ex-Classics
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Reproduction of the cycle of paintings "Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry" (2002) by one of Scotland's most renowned contemporary artists
  • "Le mythe d'Ossian" (in French) in art in French public collections

ossian, other, uses, disambiguation, irish, gaelic, scottish, gaelic, oisean, narrator, purported, author, cycle, epic, poems, published, scottish, poet, james, macpherson, originally, fingal, 1761, temora, 1763, later, combined, under, title, poems, macpherso. For other uses see Ossian disambiguation Ossian ˈ ɒ ʃ en ˈ ɒ s i en Irish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Oisean is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson originally as Fingal 1761 and Temora 1763 1 and later combined under the title The Poems of Ossian Macpherson claimed to have collected word of mouth material in Scottish Gaelic said to be from ancient sources and that the work was his translation of that material Ossian is based on Oisin son of Fionn mac Cumhaill anglicised to Finn McCool 2 a legendary bard in Irish mythology Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work s authenticity but the current consensus is that Macpherson largely composed the poems himself drawing in part on traditional Gaelic poetry he had collected 3 Ossian Singing Nicolai Abildgaard 1787The work was internationally popular translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic movement and the Gaelic revival Macpherson s fame was crowned by his burial among the literary giants in Westminster Abbey W P Ker in the Cambridge History of English Literature observes that all Macpherson s craft as a philological impostor would have been nothing without his literary skill 4 Contents 1 Poems 2 Reception and influence 3 Authenticity debate 4 Translations and adaptations 5 Gaelic studies 6 In art 6 1 Britain Germany and Scandinavia 6 2 France 7 Editions 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksPoems edit nbsp Ossian and Malvina by Johann Peter Krafft 1810 In 1760 Macpherson published the English language text Fragments of ancient poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Gaelic or Erse language 5 Later that year he claimed to have obtained further manuscripts and in 1761 he claimed to have found an epic on the subject of the hero Fingal with Fingal or Fionnghall meaning white stranger 6 written by Ossian According to Macpherson s prefatory material his publisher claiming that there was no market for these works except in English required that they be translated Macpherson published these alleged translations during the next few years culminating in a collected edition The Works of Ossian in 1765 The most famous of these Ossianic poems was Fingal written in 1761 and dated 1762 The supposed original poems are translated into poetic prose with short and simple sentences The mood is epic but there is no single narrative although the same characters reappear The main characters are Ossian himself relating the stories when old and blind his father Fingal very loosely based on the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill his dead son Oscar also with an Irish counterpart and Oscar s lover Malvina like Fiona a name invented by Macpherson who looks after Ossian in his old age Though the stories are of endless battles and unhappy loves the enemies and causes of strife are given little explanation and context 7 Characters are given to killing loved ones by mistake and dying of grief or of joy There is very little information given on the religion culture or society of the characters and buildings are hardly mentioned The landscape is more real than the people who inhabit it Drowned in eternal mist illuminated by a decrepit sun or by ephemeral meteors it is a world of greyness 7 Fingal is king of a region of south west Scotland perhaps similar to the historical kingdom of Dal Riata and the poems appear to be set around the 3rd century with the king of the world mentioned being the Roman Emperor Macpherson and his supporters detected references to Caracalla d 217 as Caracul and Carausius d 293 as Caros the king of ships 8 Reception and influence editThe poems achieved international success Napoleon and Diderot were prominent admirers and Voltaire was known to have written parodies of them 9 Thomas Jefferson thought Ossian the greatest poet that has ever existed 10 and planned to learn Gaelic so as to read his poems in the original 11 They were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical writers such as Homer The genuine remains of Ossian are in many respects of the same stamp as the Iliad was Thoreau s opinion 12 Many writers were influenced by the works including Walter Scott and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects The Hungarian national poet Sandor Petofi wrote a poem entitled Homer and Ossian comparing the two authors of which the first verse reads Oh where are you Hellenes and Celts Already you have vanished like Two cities drowning In the waters of the deep Only the tips of towers stand out from the water Two tips of towers Homer Ossian Despite its doubtful authenticity the Ossian cycle popularized Scottish national mythology across Europe and became one of the earliest and most popular texts that inspired romantic nationalist movements over the following century European historians agree that the Ossian poems and their vision of mythical Scotland spurred the emergence of enlightened patriotism on the continent and played a foundational role in the making of modern European nationalism 1 The cycle had less impact in the British Isles Samuel Johnson held it up as another proof of Scotch conspiracy in national falsehood while the Irish objected to what they saw as Macpherson s misappropriation of their own traditions David Hume eventually withdrew his initial support of Macpherson and quipped that he could not accept the claimed authenticity of the poems even if fifty bare arsed Highlanders vouched for it By the early 19th century the cycle came to play a limited role in Scottish patriotic rhetoric 1 Authenticity debate edit nbsp Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora by Francois Pascal Simon Gerard 1801There were immediate disputes of Macpherson s claims on both literary and political grounds 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 Samuel Johnson English author critic and biographer was convinced that Macpherson was a mountebank a liar and a fraud and that the poems were forgeries 13 Johnson also dismissed the poems quality 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 Johnson is cited as calling the story of Ossian as gross an imposition as ever the world was troubled with 14 In support of his claim Johnson also called Gaelic the rude speech of a barbarous people and said there were no manuscripts in it more than 100 years old In reply it was proved that the Advocates Library at Edinburgh contained Gaelic manuscripts 500 years old and one of even greater antiquity 15 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 The work also had a timely resonance for those swept away by the emerging Romantic movement and the theory of the noble savage and it echoed the popularity of Burke s seminal A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful 1757 16 In 1766 the Irish antiquarian and Gaelic scholar Charles O Conor dismissed Ossian s authenticity in a new chapter Remarks on Mr Mac Pherson s translation of Fingal and Temora that he added to the second edition of his seminal history 17 In 1775 he expanded his criticism in a new book Dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots nbsp Ossian s Cave at The Hermitage in Dunkeld ScotlandFaced with the controversy the Committee of the Highland Society enquired after the authenticity of Macpherson s supposed original It was because of these circumstances that the so called Glenmasan manuscript Adv 72 2 3 came to light in the late 18th century 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 18 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 19 or largely on Scots Gaelic oral traditions and manuscripts as Macpherson claimed In the late 19th century it was demonstrated that the only original Gaelic manuscripts that Macpherson produced for the poems were in fact back translations of his work from English 3 During the same period Peter Hately Waddell defended the authenticity of the poems arguing in Ossian and the Clyde 1875 that the poems contained topographical references that could not have been known to Macpherson 20 In 1952 the Scottish literary scholar Derick Thomson investigated the sources for Macpherson s work and concluded that Macpherson had collected genuine 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 21 According to historians Colin Kidd and James Coleman Fingal 1761 dated 1762 was indebted to traditional Gaelic poetry composed in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as to Macpherson s own creativity and editorial laxity while the second epic Temora 1763 was largely his own creation 1 Translations and adaptations editOne poem was translated into French in 1762 and by 1777 the whole corpus 22 In the German speaking states Michael Denis made the first full translation in 1768 69 inspiring the proto nationalist poets Klopstock and Goethe whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson s work figures prominently in a climactic scene of The Sorrows of Young Werther 1774 23 24 Goethe s associate Johann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titled Extract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples 1773 in the early days of the Sturm und Drang movement Complete Danish translations were made in 1790 and Swedish ones in 1794 1800 In Scandinavia and Germany the Celtic nature of the setting was ignored or not understood and Ossian was regarded as a Nordic or Germanic figure who became a symbol for nationalist aspirations 25 In 1799 the French general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte named his only son Oscar after the character from Ossian at the suggestion of Napoleon the child s godfather and an admirer of Ossian 22 Bernadotte later was made King of Sweden and Norway In 1844 his son became King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway who was in turn succeeded by his sons Charles XV and Oscar II d 1907 Oscar being a royal name led to its becoming also a common male first name especially in Scandinavia but also in other European countries Melchiore Cesarotti was an Italian clergyman whose translation into Italian is said by many to improve on the original and was a tireless promoter of the poems in Vienna and Warsaw as well as Italy It was his translation that Napoleon especially admired 22 and among others it influenced Ugo Foscolo who was Cesarotti s pupil in the University of Padua nbsp The Dream of Ossian Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres 1813 nbsp The Songs of Ossian ink and watercolours Ingres 1811 13British composer Harriet Wainwright premiered her opera Comala based on text by Ossian in London in 1792 The first partial Polish translation of Ossian was made by Ignacy Krasicki in 1793 The complete translation appeared in 1838 by Seweryn Goszczynski By 1800 Ossian was translated into Spanish and Russian with Dutch following in 1805 and Polish Czech and Hungarian in 1827 33 22 The poems were as much admired in Hungary as in France and Germany Hungarian Janos Arany wrote Homer and Ossian in response and several other Hungarian writers Baroti Szabo Csokonai Sandor Kisfaludy Kazinczy Kolcsey Ferenc Toldy and Agost Greguss were also influenced by it 26 The opera Ossian ou Les bardes by Jean Francois Le Sueur with the famous multimedial scene of Ossian s Dream was a sell out at the Paris Opera in 1804 and transformed the composer s career 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 In 1829 Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to visit the Hebrides and composed the Hebrides Overture also known as Fingal s Cave His friend Niels Gade devoted his first published work the concert overture Efterklange af Ossian Echoes of Ossian written in 1840 to the same subject Gaelic studies editThis section possibly contains original research Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations Statements consisting only of original research should be removed June 2017 Learn how and when to remove this template message Macpherson s Ossian made a strong impression on Dugald Buchanan 1716 68 a Perthshire poet whose celebrated Spiritual Hymns are written in a Scots Gaelic of a high quality that to some extent reflects the Classical Gaelic literary language once common to the bards of both Ireland and Scotland Buchanan taking the poems of Ossian to be authentic was moved to revalue the genuine traditions and rich cultural heritage of the Gaels At around the same time he wrote to Sir James Clerk of Penicuik the leading antiquary of the movement proposing that someone should travel to the isles and western coast of Scotland and collect the work of the ancient and modern bards in which alone he could find the language in its purity Much later in the 19th and 20th centuries this task was taken up by collectors such as Alexander Carmichael 27 and Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray 28 and to be recorded and continued by the work of the School of Scottish Studies and the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society In art editSubjects from the Ossian poems were popular in the art of northern Europe but at rather different periods depending on the country by the time French artists began to depict Ossian British artists had largely dropped him Ossian was especially popular in Danish art but also found in Germany and the rest of Scandinavia Britain Germany and Scandinavia edit British artists began to depict the Ossian poems early on with the first major work a cycle of paintings decorating the ceiling the Grand Hall of Penicuik House in Midlothian built by Sir James Clerk who commissioned the paintings in 1772 These were by the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman but were lost when the house burnt down in 1899 though drawings and etchings survive and two pamphlets describing them were published in the 18th century 29 A subject from Ossian by Angelica Kauffman was shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1773 and Ossian was depicted in Elysium part of the Irish painter James Barry s magnum opus decorating the Royal Society of Arts at the Adelphi Buildings in London still in situ 30 nbsp Fingal Sees the Ghosts of His Ancestors in the Moonlight Nicolai Abildgaard 1778Works on paper by Thomas Girtin and John Sell Cotman have survived though the Ossianic landscapes by George Augustus Wallis which the Ossian fan August Wilhelm Schlegel praised in a letter to Goethe seem to have been lost as has a picture by J M W Turner exhibited in 1802 Henry Singleton exhibited paintings some of which were engraved and used in editions of the poems 31 A fragment by Novalis written in 1789 refers to Ossian as an inspired holy and poetical singer 32 The Danish painter Nicolai Abildgaard director of the Copenhagen Academy from 1789 painted several scenes from Ossian as did his pupils including Asmus Jacob Carstens 33 His friend Joseph Anton Koch painted a number of subjects and two large series of illustrations for the poems which never got properly into print like many Ossianic works by Wallis Carstens Krafft and others some of these were painted in Rome perhaps not the best place to evoke the dim northern light of the poems In Germany the request in 1804 to produce some drawings as illustrations so excited Philipp Otto Runge that he planned a series of 100 far more than asked for in a style heavily influenced by the linear illustrations of John Flaxman these remain as drawings only 34 Many other German works are recorded some as late as the 1840s 35 word of the British scepticism over the Ossian poems was slow to penetrate the continent or considered irrelevant France edit nbsp Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of Fallen French Heroes Anne Louis Girodet 1805In France the enthusiasm of Napoleon for the poems accounts for most artistic depictions and those by the most famous artists but a painting exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1800 by Paul Duqueylar now Musee Granet Aix en Provence excited Les Barbus the Bearded Ones a group of primitivist artists including Pierre Maurice Quays or Quai who promoted living in the style of early civilizations as described in Homer Ossian and the Bible 36 Quays is reported as saying Homere Ossian le soleil la lune Voila la question En verite je crois que je prefere la lune C est plus simple plus grand plus primitif Homer Ossian the sun the moon That s the question Truthfully I think I prefer the moon It s more simple more grand more primitive 37 The same year Napoleon was planning the renovation of the Chateau de Malmaison as a summer palace and though he does not seem to have suggested Ossianic subjects for his painters two large and significant works were among those painted for the reception hall for which six artists had been commissioned nbsp Malvina or The Death of Malvina by Ary Scheffer see literature c 1802 musee Auguste Grasset Varzy nbsp Study by Girodet for his Ossian painting 1801 LouvreThese were Girodet s painting of 1801 02 Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes and Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora 1801 by Francois Pascal Simon Gerard Gerard s original was lost in a shipwreck after being bought by the King of Sweden after the fall of Napoleon but survives in three replicas by the artist a further one in Berlin was lost in 1945 One is now at Malmaison 184 5 194 5 cm 72 6 76 6 in and the Kunsthalle Hamburg has another 180 5 198 5 cm A watercolour copy by Jean Baptiste Isabey was placed as frontispiece to Napoleon s copy of the poems 38 39 40 Duqueylar Girodet and Gerard like Johann Peter Krafft above and most of the Barbus were all pupils of David and the clearly unclassical subjects of the Ossian poems were useful for emergent French Romantic painting marking a revolt against David s Neoclassical choice of historical subject matter David s recorded reactions to the paintings were guarded or hostile he said of Girodet s work Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting 41 Girodet s painting still at Malmaison 192 5 184 cm was a succes de scandale when exhibited in 1802 and remains a key work in the emergence of French Romantic painting but the specific allusions to the political situation that he intended it to carry were largely lost on the public and overtaken by the Peace of Amiens with Great Britain signed in 1802 between the completion and exhibition of the work 42 43 He also produced Malvina dying in the arms of Fingal c 1802 and other works Another pupil of David Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was to depict Ossianic scenes over most of his long career He made a drawing in 1809 when studying in Rome and in 1810 or 1811 was commissioned to make two paintings The Dream of Ossian and a classical scene to decorate the bedroom Napoleon was to occupy in the Palazzo Quirinale on a visit to Rome In fact the visit never came off and in 1835 Ingres repurchased the work now in poor condition nbsp Wilbur Woodward Ossian Salon de 1880 Photo Jamie MulherronThe American painter based in Paris Wilbur Winfield Woodward exhibited an Ossian at the 1880 Salon 44 Editions editNational Library of Scotland has 327 books and associated materials in its Ossian Collection The collection was originally assembled by J Norman Methven of Perth and includes different editions and translations of James Macpherson s epic poem Ossian some with a map of the Kingdom of Connor It also contains secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy More than 200 items from the collection have been digitised 45 Below are some other online editions of interest and recent works 1760 Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland Edinburgh second edition 1803 The Poems of Ossian in two volumes an illustrated edition Vol I Vol II London Lackington Allen and co 1887 Poems of Ossian Literally translated from the Gaelic in the original measure of verse by Peter McNaughton Edinburgh William Blackwood and Sons 1888 Poems of Ossian translated by James Macpherson a pocket reprint of the 1773 edition omitting the four last poems London Walter Scott 1996 The Poems of Ossian and Related Works ed Howard Gaskill with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford Edinburgh University Press 2004 Ossian and Ossianism Dafydd Moore a 4 volume edition of Ossianic works and a collection of varied responses London Routledge This includes facsimiles of the Ossian works contemporary and later responses contextual letters and reviews and later adaptations 2011 Blind Ossian s Fingal fragments and controversy a reprint of the first edition and abridgement of the follow up with new material by Allan and Linda Burnett Edinburgh Luath Press Ltd 2021 Ossian Warrior Poet an edited and illustrated edition of the Poems with a new introduction and index by Scottish artist Eileen Budd Windermere Wide Open Sea Press See also editOssian s Hall of Mirrors Folk process Romanticism Ossianic Society Ireland Vestiarium Scoticum Manuscripts of Dvur Kralove and of Zelena Hora Lord DunsanyNotes edit a b c d Kidd Colin Coleman James 2012 Mythical Scotland In T M Devine Jenny Wormald ed The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History Oxford University Press pp 67 70 ISBN 978 0 19 956369 2 Rainbolt Dawn 8 March 2017 Finn McCool amp the Giant s Causeway Wilderness Ireland Retrieved 7 February 2020 a b Ossian Encyclopedia Britannica Retrieved 19 January 2021 In The Cambridge History of English Literature vol 10 The Age of Johnson The Literary Influence of the Middle Ages p 228 Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland Literary Encyclopedia 2004 retrieved 27 December 2006 Behind the Name View Name Fingal a b Okun 1967 p 328 A Dissertation concerning the Aera of Ossian published as prefatory matter in later editions of the poems Howard Gaskill The reception of Ossian in Europe 2004 Quoted in Carpenter Frederick 1930 1931 The Vogue of Ossian in America American Literature 2 405 17 doi 10 2307 2920160 JSTOR 2920160 Wilson Douglas L ed 1989 Thomas Jefferson s Literary Commonplace Book Princeton NJ Princeton University Press p 172 ISBN 0691047200 Retrieved 8 April 2015 Thoreau Henry David Thoreau Collected Essays and Poems The Library of America p 141 ISBN 1 883011 95 7 Magnusson 2006 p 340 Introduction of Robert Fagles translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Ripley George Dana Charles A eds 1879 Ossian The American Cyclopaedia J Buchan Crowded with Genius London Harper Collins 2003 ISBN 0 06 055888 1 p 163 O Conor C Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland 1753 Copy at Ex Classics MacKinnon Donald 1905 The Glenmasan Manuscript The Celtic Review 1 6 3 17 doi 10 2307 30069764 JSTOR 30069764 Lord Auchinleck s Fingal Florida Bibliophile Society archived from the original on 26 July 2011 retrieved 9 April 2010 Waddell Peter Hately Dictionary of National Biography London Smith Elder amp Co 1885 19 Thomson Derick 1952 The Gaelic Sources of Macpherson s Ossian a b c d Okun 1967 p 330 Berresford Ellis 1987 p 159 Arnold M Thor myth to marvel Continuum Publishing 2011 pp92 97 Okun 1967 pp 330 339 Oszkar Elek 1933 Ossian kultusz Magyarorszagon Egyetemes Philologiai Kozlony LVII 66 76 Carmina Gadelica Alexander Carmichael printed by T amp A Constable Edinburgh 1900 Tales from Highland Perthshire collected by Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray translated and edited by Sylvia Robertson and Tony Dilworth Scottish Gaelic Texts Society Volume 20 2009 Okun 1967 pp 331 334 Okun 1967 pp 334 335 Okun 1967 pp 336 338 Schmidt 2003 p 976 Okun 1967 pp 339 341 Okun 1967 pp 338 345 Okun 1967 pp 335 346 Okun 1967 pp 346 347 Rubin 1976 p 383 Okun 1967 pp 347 348 Rubin 1976 pp 384 386 and throughout on the variety of titles by which the work has been known Ossian evoque les fantomes au son de la harpe sur les bords du fleuve Lora Ossian evokes ghosts to the sound of the harp on the banks of the Lora river musees nationaux napoleoniens org in French 7 March 2004 Archived from the original on 5 July 2007 Honour 1968 pp 184 190 187 quoted Okun 1967 pp 349 351 L Apotheose des Heros francais morts pour la patrie pendant la guerre de la Liberte The Apotheosis of French Heroes who died for their country during the War of Freedom musees nationaux napoleoniens org in French 7 March 2004 Archived from the original on 5 September 2008 Retrieved 4 February 2023 Salon 1880 no 3921 p 386 Ossian Collection Selected books from the Ossian Collection of 327 volumes originally assembled by J Norman Methven of Perth Different editions and translations of James MacPherson s epic poem Ossian some with a map of the Kingdom of Connor Also secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy Edinburgh National Library of Scotland Retrieved 23 March 2014 References editBerresford Ellis Peter 1987 A Dictionary of Irish Mythology Constable ISBN 0 09 467540 6 Gaskill Howard ed The reception of Ossian in Europe London Continuum 2004 ISBN 0 8264 6135 2 Honour Hugh 1968 Neo classicism Harmondsworth Penguin ISBN 0 14 020978 6 OCLC 647678269 via Internet Archive Kristmannsson Gauti Ossian the European National Epic 1760 1810 EGO European History Online Mainz Institute of European History 2015 retrieved March 8 2021 pdf Magnusson Magnus 2006 Fakers Forgers amp Phoneys Edinburgh Mainstream Publishing ISBN 1 84596 190 0 Moore Dafydd Enlightenment and Romance in James Macpherson s the Poems of Ossian Myth Genre and Cultural Change Studies in Early Modern English Literature 2003 Okun Henry 1 January 1967 Ossian in Painting Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes University of Chicago Press 30 1 327 356 doi 10 2307 750749 ISSN 0075 4390 JSTOR 750749 S2CID 195003210 Rubin James Henry 1976 Gerard s Painting of Ossian as an Allegory of Inspired Art Studies in Romanticism JSTOR 15 3 383 394 doi 10 2307 25600033 ISSN 0039 3762 JSTOR 25600033 Hanselaar Saskia La Mort de Malvina du musee Auguste Grasset a Varzy une œuvre de jeunesse reattribuee a Ary Scheffer La Revue des musees de France Revue du Louvre LXIe annee octobre 2011 n 4 p 87 96 Schmidt Wolf Gerhard 31 December 2003 Gaskill Howard Gaskill Howard eds Homer des Nordens und Mutter der Romantik Bd 1 James Macphersons Ossian zeitgenossische Diskurse und die Fruhphase der deutschen Rezeption Bd 2 Die Haupt und Spatphase der deutschen Rezeption Bibliographie internationaler Quellentexte und Forschungsliteratur Homer of the North and Mother of Romanticism Vol 1 James Macpherson s Ossian contemporary discourses and the early phase of German reception Vol 2 The main and late phase of German reception Bibliography of international source texts and research literature in German De Gruyter doi 10 1515 9783110926569 ISBN 978 3 11 017924 8 OCLC 979594707 Thomson Derick Smith The Gaelic Sources of Macpherson s Ossian 1951 Aberdeen University PressFurther reading editBlack George F 1926 Macpherson s Ossian and the Ossianic Controversy New York a href Template Citation html title Template Citation citation a CS1 maint location missing publisher link MacGregor Patrick 1841 The Genuine Remains of Ossian Literally Translated Highland Society of London Porter James 2019 Beyond Fingal s cave Ossian in the musical imagination Rochester ISBN 978 1 78744 462 1 OCLC 1104139334 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link in FrenchCollectif La Legende d Ossian illustree par Girodet catalogue de l exposition du meme nom organisee par les musees de Montargis Montargis Musee Girodet 1988 Gluck Denise Ossian et l ossianisme dans Hier pour demain Arts Tradition et Patrimoine catalogue de l exposition du Grand Palais Paris Reunion des musees nationaux 1980 Hanselaar Saskia Ossian ou l Esthetique des Ombres une generation d artistes francais a la veille du Romantisme 1793 1833 PhD dir S Le Men Universite de Paris Ouest Nanterre la Defense 2008 Soubigou Gilles Ossian et les Barbus primitivisme et retirement du monde sous le Directoire in Renoncer a l art Figures du romantisme et des annees 1970 Julie Ramos ed Paris Roven 2014 pp 85 105 Van Thieghem Paul Ossian en France Paris Rieder 1917 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ossian nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Poems of Ossian nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article Ossian nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Ossian Digitised version of Fragments of ancient poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Galic or Erse language published 1760 at National Library of Scotland 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 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 artists Le mythe d Ossian in French in art in French public collections Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Ossian amp oldid 1190719432, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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