Ossian (/ˈɒʃən,ˈɒsiən/;Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic:Oisean) is the narrator and purported author of a cycle ofepic poems published by the Scottish poetJames Macpherson, originally asFingal (1761) andTemora (1763),[1] and later combined under the titleThe Poems of Ossian. Macpherson claimed to have collectedword-of-mouth material inScottish Gaelic, said to be from ancient sources, and that the work was his translation of that material. Ossian is based onOisín, son ofFionn mac Cumhaill (anglicised to Finn McCool),[2] a legendarybard inIrish 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]
The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe, and was highly influential both in the development of theRomantic movement and theGaelic revival. Macpherson's fame was crowned by his burial among the literary giants inWestminster Abbey.W. P. Ker, in theCambridge History of English Literature, observes that "all Macpherson's craft as aphilological impostor would have been nothing without his literary skill."[4]
In 1760, Macpherson published the English-language textFragments 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 anepic on the subject of the hero Fingal (with Fingal orFionnghall meaning 'fair stranger' denoting hair or eye colour[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 wasFingal, 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 heroFionn mac Cumhaill), his dead son Oscar (also with anIrish counterpart), and Oscar's loverMalvina (likeFiona 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 ofDál Riata and the poems appear to be set around the 3rd century, with the "king of the world" mentioned being theRoman Emperor; Macpherson and his supporters detected references toCaracalla (d. 217, as "Caracul") andCarausius (d. 293, as "Caros", the "king of ships").[8]
The poems achieved international success.Napoleon andDiderot were prominent admirers, andVoltaire 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 theClassical writers such asHomer. "The genuine remains of Ossian ... are in many respects of the same stamp as theIliad", wasThoreau's opinion.[12] Many writers were influenced by the works, includingWalter Scott, and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects.
The Hungarian national poetSándor Petőfi wrote a poem entitledHomer 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 popularizedCeltic mythology across Europe, and became one of the earliest and most popular texts that inspiredromantic nationalism 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 theBritish 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 theFenian Cycle ofIrish mythology.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]
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 commonGaelic 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 "amountebank, 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]
In response, as his words were spoken during the 18th-century golden age ofScottish Gaelic literature, Dr Johnson swiftly found himself reviled in Gaelicsatirical poetry by, among many others, James MacIntyre, theClan MacIntyreTacksman of Glen Noe nearBen Cruachan, in (Scottish Gaelic:Òran don Ollamh MacIain, "A Song to Dr Johnson"). Raonuill Dubh MacDhòmhnuill, the eldest son of Gaelicnational poetAlasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair andClanranald tacksman ofLaig, included MacIntyre's satire in the Gaelic poetry anthology calledTheEigg Collection, which was published atEdinburgh in 1776.[16]
Scottish authorHugh Blair's 1763A 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 ofOssian to lend the work credibility. The work also had a timely resonance for those swept away by the emergingRomantic movement and the theory of the "noble savage", and it echoed the popularity ofBurke's seminalA Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757).[17]
In 1766,antiquarian andCelticistCharles O'Conor, a descendant of theGaelic nobility of Ireland, dismissed Ossian's authenticity in a new chapterRemarks on Mr. Mac Pherson's translation of Fingal and Temora that he added to the second edition of his seminal history.[18] In 1775, he expanded his criticism in a new book,Dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots.
Faced with the controversy, the Committee of theHighland Society enquired after the authenticity of Macpherson's supposed original. It was because of these circumstances that the so-calledGlenmasan manuscript (Adv. 72.2.3) came to light in the late 18th century, a compilation which contains the taleOided mac n-Uisnig. This text is a version of the IrishLonges 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.[19]
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,[20] 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 translations of his work from English.[3] During the same period,Peter Hately Waddell defended the authenticity of the poems, arguing inOssian and the Clyde (1875) that the poems contained topographical references that could not have been known to Macpherson.[21]
In 1952, the Scottish literary scholarDerick Thomson investigated the sources for Macpherson's work and concluded that Macpherson had collected genuine Scottish Gaelicballads, employing scribes to record those that were preserved orally and collating manuscripts, but, as a pioneer ofmythopoeia, had adapted often contradictory accounts of the same legends into a coherent plotline by altering the original characters and ideas, and had also introduced a great deal of his own.[22]
According to historiansColin 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 epicTemora (1763) was largely his own creation.[1]
Nowadays, the work is considered a classic offound manuscript trope.[23]
One poem was translated into French in 1762; by 1777, the whole corpus was translated.[24] In the German-speaking states,Michael Denis made the first full translation in 1768–1769, inspiring the proto-nationalist poetsKlopstock andGoethe, whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson's work figures prominently in a climactic scene ofThe Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).[25][26] Goethe's associateJohann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titledExtract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples (1773) in the early days of theSturm und Drang movement.
Complete Danish translations were made in 1790, and Swedish ones in 1794–1800. InScandinavia and Germany, the Celtic nature of the setting was ignored or not understood; instead, Ossian was regarded as a Nordic or Germanic figure who became a symbol for nationalist aspirations.[27] In 1799, the French generalJean-Baptiste Bernadotte named his only son Oscar after the character from Ossian, at the suggestion ofNapoleon, the child's godfather and an admirer of Ossian.[24] Bernadotte later was made King ofSweden andNorway. In 1844, his son became KingOscar I of Sweden and Norway, who was, in turn, succeeded by his sonsCharles XV andOscar 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, inVienna andWarsaw as well as Italy. It was his translation that Napoleon especially admired,[24] and among others it influencedUgo Foscolo, who was Cesarotti's pupil in theUniversity of Padua.
British composerHarriet Wainwright premiered her operaComala, based on text by Ossian, in London in 1792.
The first partialPolish translation of Ossian was made byIgnacy Krasicki in 1793. The complete translation appeared in 1838 bySeweryn Goszczyński.
By 1800, Ossian was translated into Spanish and Russian, with Dutch following in 1805, and Polish, Czech and Hungarian in 1827–1833.[24] The poems were as much admired inHungary as in France and Germany; HungarianJános 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.[28]
The operaOssian, ou Les bardes byJean-François Le Sueur (with the famous, multimedial scene of "Ossian's Dream") was a sell-out at theParis Opera in 1804, and transformed the composer's career. The poems also exerted an influence on the burgeoning ofRomantic music, andFranz Schubert in particular composedLieder setting many of Ossian's poems. In 1829Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to visit the Hebrides and composed theHebrides Overture, also known asFingal's Cave. His friendNiels Gade devoted his first published work, the concert overtureEfterklange af Ossian ("Echoes of Ossian") written in 1840, to the same subject.
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Macpherson'sOssian made a strong impression onDugald Buchanan (1716–1768), aPerthshire poet whose celebratedSpiritual Hymns are written in a Scots Gaelic of a high quality that to some extent reflects theClassical Gaelicliterary language once common to the bards of both Ireland and Scotland. Buchanan, taking the poems ofOssian to be authentic, was moved to revalue the genuine traditions and rich cultural heritage of the Gaels. At around the same time, he wrote toSir 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 asAlexander Carmichael[29] andLady Evelyn Stewart Murray,[30] and to be recorded and continued by the work of theSchool of Scottish Studies and the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society.
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 inDanish art, but also found in Germany and the rest of Scandinavia.
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" ofPenicuik House inMidlothian, built bySir James Clerk, who commissioned the paintings in 1772. These were by the Scottish painterAlexander Runciman but were lost when the house burnt down in 1899, though drawings andetchings survive, and two pamphlets describing them were published in the 18th century.[31] A subject from Ossian byAngelica Kauffman was shown in theRoyal Academy exhibition of 1773, and Ossian was depicted inElysium, part of the Irish painterJames Barry'smagnum opus decorating theRoyal Society of Arts, at theAdelphi Buildings in London (stillin situ).[32]
Works on paper byThomas Girtin andJohn Sell Cotman have survived, though the Ossianic landscapes by George Augustus Wallis, which the Ossian fanAugust Wilhelm Schlegel praised in a letter to Goethe, seem to have been lost, as has a picture byJ. M. W. Turner exhibited in 1802.Henry Singleton exhibited paintings, some of which were engraved and used in editions of the poems.[33]
A fragment byNovalis, written in 1789, refers to Ossian as an inspired, holy and poetical singer.[34]
The Danish painterNicolai Abildgaard, director of theCopenhagen Academy from 1789, painted several scenes from Ossian, as did his pupils, includingAsmus Jacob Carstens.[35] His friendJoseph 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 excitedPhilipp Otto Runge that he planned a series of 100, far more than asked for, in a style heavily influenced by the linear illustrations ofJohn Flaxman; these remain as drawings only.[36] Many other German works are recorded, some as late as the 1840s;[37] word of the British scepticism over the Ossian poems was slow to penetrate the continent, or considered irrelevant.
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 theParis Salon of 1800 byPaul Duqueylar (nowMusée Granet,Aix-en-Provence) excitedLes Barbus ("the Bearded Ones"), a group of primitivist artists includingPierre-Maurice Quays (or Quaï) who promoted living in the style of "early civilizations as described in Homer, Ossian, and the Bible".[38] 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, plusprimitif". ("Homer? Ossian? ... the sun? the moon? That's the question. Truthfully I think I prefer the moon. It's more simple, more grand, moreprimitive").[39] The same year, Napoleon was planning the renovation of theChâteau 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.
These wereGirodet's painting of 1801–02Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, andOssian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora (1801), byFrançois 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 theKunsthalle Hamburg has another (180.5 × 198.5 cm). Awatercolour copy byJean-Baptiste Isabey was placed asfrontispiece to Napoleon's copy of the poems.[40][41][42]
Duqueylar, Girodet and Gérard, likeJohann Peter Krafft (above) and most of theBarbus, were all pupils ofDavid, and the clearly unclassical subjects of the Ossian poems were useful for emergent French Romantic painting, marking a revolt against David'sNeoclassical 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".[43]
Girodet's painting (still at Malmaison; 192.5 × 184 cm) was asuccès 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 thePeace of Amiens with Great Britain, signed in 1802 between the completion and exhibition of the work.[44][45] He also producedMalvina 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 thePalazzo Quirinale on a visit to Rome. In fact the visit never came off and in 1835 Ingres repurchased the work, now in poor condition.
The American painter based in ParisWilbur Winfield Woodward exhibited an Ossian at the 1880 Salon.[46]
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.[47]
Below are some other online editions of interest and recent works:
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