Few episodes in the history of the Celtic revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are as famous, as controversial, or as consequential as the publication of James Macpherson’s Ossian poems in the 1760s. The controversy that surrounded the authenticity of the poems, and the broader European fascination with the figure of Ossian that the publication created, is a defining moment in the modern Celtic legacy today and one of the most interesting cases in the history of literary forgery.
The Publication of Ossian
James Macpherson was a young Scottish schoolmaster from Ruthven in the Highlands when he published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland in 1760. The Fragments were presented as translations of fragments of an ancient Gaelic epic, and they were an immediate success in the literary world of Edinburgh and London. Encouraged by the reception, Macpherson set out on a tour of the Highlands to collect more material, and in 1761 he published Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, and in 1763 he published Temora, an Ancient Epic Poem. The two long poems were presented as translations of a complete ancient Gaelic epic composed by Ossian, the son of the warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill of the Fenian cycle.
The Ossian poems were an immediate sensation. The works were translated into most of the major European languages within a few years of their publication, and the figure of Ossian became a major presence in the European literary imagination. Napoleon, who carried a copy of Ossian with him on his campaigns, was a particular admirer. The German Romantics, including Goethe and Herder, drew heavily on the Ossian poems, and the influence on the French and Italian Romantic traditions was also substantial. The Ossian poems were, in the late eighteenth century, one of the most widely read works of literature in Europe.
The Authenticity Debate
The authenticity of the Ossian poems was challenged almost from the moment of their publication. The first major skeptic was Samuel Johnson, who travelled to the Highlands in 1773 and who wrote a famous account of the trip in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland of 1775. Johnson concluded that the poems were substantially Macpherson’s own invention, and he was particularly scathing about Macpherson’s claim to have found the material in the oral tradition.
The question of authenticity was taken up more systematically in the early nineteenth century. The Highland Society of London, founded in 1778, sent delegates to the Highlands to interview potential sources and to compare Macpherson’s texts with the genuine Gaelic tradition. The investigation suggested that the poems were substantially Macpherson’s own work, and the general consensus of modern scholarship is that the poems, although they drew on genuine Gaelic traditions, were largely Macpherson’s invention. The question has continued to be debated, and the modern scholarly consensus is more nuanced than simple acceptance or rejection: scholars have shown that Macpherson drew on a substantial body of genuine Gaelic oral tradition, including the Fenian cycle of the older Irish and Scottish Gaelic tradition, and the poems can be read as creative adaptations rather than as straightforward fabrications.
The European Reception
The European reception of the Ossian poems was, in many ways, more important than the question of authenticity. The poems gave the European literary public an image of the Celtic past that was at once heroic, melancholic, and mysterious, and this image was taken up by writers, painters, composers, and philosophers across the continent. The figure of Ossian became a touchstone of Romanticism, and the influence of the poems can be traced in the works of writers as diverse as Goethe, Chateaubriand, Leopardi, and Walter Scott.
The visual arts of the Romantic period were also strongly influenced by the Ossian poems. The French painter François Gérard, the German painter Wilhelm Ternite, and the French sculptor François Rude all produced major works on Ossianic subjects, and the Ossian theme was a major presence in the visual arts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The musical settings of the Ossian poems, including the works of the Italian composer Luigi Cherubini and the German composer Carl Loewe, were also a substantial part of the Ossian phenomenon.
The Effect on the Highlands
The effect of the Ossian poems on the Scottish Highlands was also substantial. The poems, whatever their authenticity, created a popular image of the Highlands as a region of heroic Gaelic tradition, of misty landscapes, and of ancient and noble warriors. The image was, of course, a romanticised one, and the actual social and economic conditions of the Highlands in the late eighteenth century were very different from the heroic past that Macpherson constructed. The Ossian poems, however, helped to make the Highlands a region of particular interest in the European imagination, and they contributed to the broader movement of Highland and Scottish national identity that would eventually produce the Celtic identity of modern Scotland.
The work of Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century, including the Lady of the Lake of 1810 and the Waverley novels of 1814-1831, was substantially influenced by the Ossian poems, and Scott’s success did much to consolidate the popular image of the Highlands that Ossian had created. The figure of Rob Roy MacGregor, the hero of Scott’s novel of 1817, is a direct descendant of the Ossianic warrior, and the broader Romantic image of the Scottish Highlands in the modern imagination is, in substantial part, a product of the Macpherson-Scott tradition.
The Broader Implications
The Macpherson controversy has had a profound effect on the scholarly understanding of the Celtic revival and on the reception of the broader Celtic tradition. The controversy was the first great literary authenticity debate of the modern period, and it prefigured the later debates about the work of Iolo Morganwg and the broader questions of how to read the modern reception of the older Celtic tradition. The Ossian case is also a major example of the way in which a literary forgery, even when exposed, can have a substantial and lasting cultural effect.
The Macpherson controversy is also an important episode in the history of the Celtic identity of the modern nations. The Ossian poems gave the Scottish Highlands a heroic past that has continued to be a central element of Scottish national identity, and the broader European image of the Celtic past that the poems helped to construct has been a significant factor in the modern Celtic influence on popular culture. Whatever the view of the authenticity of the poems, the Ossian episode is an important chapter in the history of the modern Celtic revival.
The Legacy of Ossian
The legacy of Ossian today is substantial. The image of the Celtic warrior in the mist, the dying hero mourning the lost past, the ancient bard singing of the heroes of old — all of these are figures that have their origin, in substantial part, in the Ossian poems. The poems are also the first major literary work in English to draw on the older Gaelic tradition, and they are the foundation on which the later literary image of the Highlands was built.
The Ossian phenomenon also helped to establish the broader European interest in the Celtic tradition that has continued. The Ossian poems are part of the genealogy of the Celtic influence on modern fantasy, and the heroic image of the Celtic past that they helped to construct has been a significant factor in the development of the modern popular image of the Celtic world. The poems are, in this sense, a foundational text of the modern Celtic imagination.
Conclusion
The Macpherson controversy and the Ossian poems are an essential episode in the history of the Celtic revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The poems, whatever their authenticity, gave the European literary public an image of the Celtic past that has been enormously influential, and the controversy that surrounded the publication is one of the most interesting cases in the history of literary forgery. The Ossian episode is, a defining moment in the modern Celtic legacy today.
Related Topics
- The Celtic revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is the broader context in which the Macpherson controversy took place.
- The Celtic identity in modern nations was substantially shaped by the Ossian episode.
- The Celtic languages and oral tradition are central to the question of how the Ossian poems relate to the older Gaelic tradition.
- The Celtic mythology and the heroic tales of the older Celtic world are the deep source for the Ossian poems.
- The Celtic influence on fantasy and popular culture is, in substantial part, a descendant of the Ossian phenomenon.