>"The Poems of Ossian" by James Macpherson were published in the 1760's, (see below) and created a sensation. Over the next thirty years it was translated into many languages, and gave a tremendous impetus to both the nascent romantic movement, and the study of folklore and Celtic languages. Goethe translated parts into German; Napoleon brought a copy to Moscow and also commissioned Ingres to paint The Dream of Ossian; Scandinavian and German princes were named Oscar after the character in it, as was Oscar Wilde; indeed the popularity of this name is due entirely to Macpherson. The city of Selma in Alabama, USA, is named after the palace of Fingal. Writers as diverse as William Blake, Henry Thoreau, George Byron, Walter Scott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Matthew Arnold praised or imitated it. Its influence or lack of it on James Fenimore Cooper has been the subject of lively debate. Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms composed pieces inspired by it. But it is little known today (though it has been recently reprinted -- see below)
>The poems achieved international success. Napoleon and Diderot were great admirers, and Voltaire wrote parodies of them.[6] Thomas Jefferson thought Ossian "the greatest poet that has ever existed",[7] and planned to learn Gaelic so as to read his poems in the original.[8] They were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical writers such as Homer. Many writers were influenced by the works, including Walter Scott, and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects. One poem was translated into French in 1762, and by 1777 the whole corpus.[9] 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).[10][11] 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.
Why aren't you reading the greatest epic of Celtic poetry?
It was literally written in a completely different language
Landon Parker
Transcribed from I should say
Logan Moore
We gojjjna not talk about the elephant in their room ?
Jeremiah Howard
Unlike what fat ignorant autismos like Samuel Johnson claimed the poems were later vindicated as being authentically derived, if compiled and edited so as to appear coherently composed There is afterall no definitive edition of the Celtic Epics, only renditions and MacPhersons was unquestionably the most historically powerful until Yeats
Brandon Anderson
It bears mentioning too that there is infact good evidence there was no actual historical Homer either, it is essentially the same act
Andrew Evans
>not listening to Gesar bardic recordings who cares about some random gaylick "poetry" when there's more vibrant, living traditions out there?
Jaxon Hill
>Gesar Who that be ?
Kevin Reyes
Googling it appears to be some stupid chink shit
Kayden Martin
this smug sky king who subdues demons and kills hitler
>the poems were later vindicated as being authentically derived I don't believe that for a second. You only have to read a few lines to be convinced it's all re-written to suit Macpherson's liking. It's as if someone embroidered dragons and goblins into the Bayeux Tapestry to make it look cooler. A travesty of anthropology, a crime against culture, an unreadable abberation.
Then wherefore its popularity? Shakespeare derived most of his plays from adapting other peoples work to his own suiting. MacPherson did the same, it remains however unquestionably Celtic and birthed from the tradition it claims to represent
Hunter Roberts
Ossian didn't exist. Grow the fuck up.
Andrew Sanchez
Neither did Homer, so what?
Easton Parker
It wasn't written in gaelic either.
Zachary Roberts
Gaelic poems were all oral traditions like Homer, MacPherson is proven to have studied them and his work is a rendition
Parker Harris
>Then wherefore its popularity? My point is it was written to be popular. I'd class it in the same literary category as Teen Vogue. The Shakespeare analogy is a hollow one; Shakespeare didn't try to fool himself or anything else into thinking he was preserving a dying [now lost, thanks to Macpherson] oral tradition. Let's rearrange the stones at Skara Brae to look like Stonehenge; that'll open peoples' eyes to the wonders of Scottish history. I don't blame the guy. That was the age of the amateur scientist, when the British were robbing tombs to stock their mantlepieces. I believe Macpherson really did collect the material, but he was like an amateur archaeologist using a shovel instead of a toothbrush to excavate a precious find.
Ian Long
It worked though, thats the significant point. If it was a deceptive act, who gives a shit and if you're interested in the authentic works they're available. Despite your proposterous claim that MacPherson somehow "ruined" the legacy he was the one who prompted their recovery among subsequent figures like Lady Gregory Meanwhile what we actually have is a work which profoundly stirred the souls of figures as great as Goethe and William Blake which you have the gall to call "unreadable"? Fuck outta here
