Ossian’s Last Stand?
27 May, online. Tickets from £3.55
For over a century after the publication of James Macpherson’s Ossianic epics, controversy raged over their authenticity. In this talk, Prof Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart will look at how the literary battle lines were drawn on both sides, & how the controversy was fought out, in books, magazines, letters, & reports.
#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Ossian #romanticism #18thcentury #19thcentury
James Macpherson’s Epic Journey
23 April, online – tickets from £3.35
Investigating the life, work, & legacy of James Macpherson. How did he create his epics – & who helped him? What poems did he draw upon for inspiration, from his own Gaelic culture? What impact did Macpherson’s poems have, in Britain & beyond – & on Scottish Gaelic culture too? And how did the controversy over the “Ossian” epic’s authenticity first begin?
For a brilliant introduction to Macpherson and the “Ossian” poems, we suggest our International Companion, ed. Dafydd Moore – available in print or online via Project MUSE
9/9
Cover 🖼️: Karoli, The woes of Ossian
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/companions/ic4/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Ossian, the European National Epic
Gauti Kristmannsson
“The number of translations & imitations […] underlines the huge creative impulse of the [Ossian] poems, which can be seen as a major paradigm shift in the outlook of what is called high culture literature.”
8/9
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
“He’s usually scorned by English-language readers as a charlatan. But he knew Gaelic, he travelled in the Highlands & he talked to Gaelic speakers. […] All works of art are made by artifice.”
Prof Alan Riach on James Macpherson’s “Ossian”
7/9
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18453868.unlocking-james-macphersons-tales-ossian/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Prof Derick Thomson conducted extensive research into the Gaelic sources of Macpherson’s poetry. This dimension is still often overlooked by scholars & many seem to be entirely unaware of it. Dr Petra Johana Poncarová explores Thomson’s work in this field
6/9
https://anglica-journal.com/article/144001/en
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Another likely reason why he was (& still is) sneered at was his popularity & success… Undoubtedly he padded his texts & added his own inventions—as writers do. Real or fake, whole swathes of the modern literary world still lie in his shadow
5/9
🖼️: Runciman, The Death of Oscar
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Macpherson did not find his texts in “ancient manuscripts” – though there are some, e.g. The Red Book of Clanranald & the Book of the Dean of Lismore. But 18th-century attitudes dismissed the oral tradition which formed the bedrock of the poems
4/9
🖼️: Scheffer, La Mort de Malvina
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Today, Macpherson is often called a “faker” & “forger”. But much of the hostility towards him is because, shortly after the Jacobite rebellions, he staked a claim for the existence of a Gaelic high culture
3/9
🖼️: Girodet, Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of Fallen French Heroes
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Ossian fans included Goethe, Diderot, Jefferson, Bonaparte, Mendelssohn… Ossian-inspired art was created across Europe. Children were given Ossianic names such as Oscar & Fiona (will children still get named “Daenerys” in 250 years?)
2/9
🖼️: Abildgaard, Ossian Singing
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #fantasy #Ossian #JamesMacpherson #Gaelic #Gaidhlig
Assoc for Scottish Literature