Review: Ossian and Ossianism in Britain and Germany: A Review Article

Reviewed Work(s): 'Homer des Nordens' und 'Mutter der Romantik': James Macphersons
'Ossian' und seine Rezeption in der deutschsprachigen Literatur. Vol. IV: Kommentierte
Neuausgabe wichtiger Texte zur deutschen Rezeption by Wolf Gerhard Schmidt and
Howard Gaskill: Ossian and Ossianism: Subcultures and Subversions, 1750-1850 by
Dafydd Moore
Review by: Francis Lamport
Source: The Modern Language Review , Jul., 2005, Vol. 100, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 740-
746
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3739124

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 OSSIAN AND OSSIANISM IN BRITAIN

AND GERMANY: A REVIEW ARTICLE

'Homer des Nordens' und 'Mutter der Romantik': James Macphers

Rezeption in der deutschsprachigen Literatur. By Wolf Gerha
i-iii); vol. iv: Kommentierte Neuausgabe wichtiger Texte zur de
ed. by Wolf Gerhard Schmidt and Howard Gaskill. Berlin and New York: de
Gruyter. 2003. Vols 1 and n: xx+ 1417 pp.; vol. m: x + 501 pp.; vol. iv: xvi +850 pp.
Vols 1 and n: ?218; vol. 111: ?98; vol. iv: ?138. Vols 1 and 11: ISBN 3-11-017924-5;
vol. 111: ISBN 3-11-017923-7; vol. iv: ISBN 3-11-017937-7.

Ossian and Ossianism: Subcultures and Subversions, iy50-1850. Ed. by Dafydd Moore.
London: Routledge. 2004. 4 vols; 2300 pp. ?425. ISBN 0-415-28894.

James Macpherson's Ossianic poems are among the most remarkable, and in?
fluential, literary phenomena to have arisen from these islands. Macpherson
published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry [. . .] Translated from the Galic or
Erse Language in 1760, followed by Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem [. . .] together
with Several Other Poems, Composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal in 1761 and
a further 'reconstructed' epic, Temora, in 1763, together with further shorter
poems and 'a specimen of the original Galic, for the satisfaction of those who
doubt the authenticity of Ossian's poems'. Doubts had indeed already been
forcefully expressed. Macpherson presented the poems as literal translations
from the works of a third-century Gaelic bard. That they certainly were not,
but nor were they entirely the fraudulent concoctions of an unscrupulous Scots-
man on the make, as was roundly declared by numerous Scotophobes, not least
the redoubtable Samuel Johnson. Controversy continued to rage as further
editions of the poems appeared, lasting well into the nineteenth century and
flaring up intermittently beyond it. Mean while the poems had been enthusi-
astically devoured across the entire world of Western civilization, especially in
Germany?thanks no doubt in considerable measure to Goethe's Werther, de?
spite Goethe's later disavowal of his early enthusiasm. In 1901 Rudolf Tombo
set out to trace the fortunes of Ossian in Germany, but got no further than the
1760s, with Klopstock and the would-be German 'bards'.1 Ossian in France
was better served by Paul van Tieghem, who also, in Le Preromantisme, showed
the crucial significance of Ossian in the European sensibility of the time.2 The
last fifteen years or so have seen a great resurgence of Ossian studies in the
English-speaking world, with the monographs by Fiona Stafford and Paul J.
DeGategno, numerous articles by Howard Gaskill (a collected edition of these
scattered publications would be very useful), and not least Gaskill's indispens?
able edition of the poems, based on Macpherson's complete collection of 1765,
and published in 1996, the bicentennial year of Macpherson's death.3 Now, it
would seem coincidentally, two substantial four-volume compendia have ap-
1 Rudolf Tombo, Ossian in Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 1901).
2 Paul van Tieghem, Ossian en France (Paris: Rieder, 1917); Le Preromantisme (Paris: Rieder,
1924);
3 Fiona Stafford, The Sublime Savage: A Study of James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988); Paul J. DeGategno, James Macpherson, Twayne's
English Authors Series, 427 (Boston, MA: Twayne, 1989); The Poems of Ossian and Related Works,

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 FRANCIS LAMPORT 741

peared, tracing and documenting the appe

and critical controversies and the further
Britain and Ireland (Moore) and in the G
Both furnish invaluable material for future
The two works are similar in conception a
in balance. Both present 'original' (the inv
Ossian appropriately cautious) as well as a g
terial, much of it otherwise difficult or ev
notes mostly of a bibliographical character
first editions of the Fragments (in this cas
followed the first in October of the same
volumes in facsimile, thus supplementing
Schmidt gives us the first complete Germ
Gedichte Ossians neuverteutschet, together w
and of Macpherson's and Blair's prefatory
lume iv a selection of other translations (D
Further material (Moore, Volumes 111 and
Gaskill is named as joint editor) documents
tical writings' and 'the creative response' in th
adaptations, etc; Schmidt adopts a further
mit it is not possible to separate these cat
prefaced in Moore's Volume 1 by a succinc
suggestively outlining the main issues raise
other hand, devotes his first two volumes,
work was originally a dissertation presente
to a detailed critical and historical survey,
siderations, then proceeding to analyse the m
aspects, then chronologically author by au
some repetitiousness, compounded by a goo
of argument and of illustrative material,
reduced by judicious cross-referencing. Th
and critical analysis, but a labyrinthine on
fitfully illuminated by the Foucauldian disc
(with some reservations and modifications)
rization. My own preference is for Moore's
Saxon (or rather, in this case, Celtic!) appr
argument is (to my mind) unnecessarily co
historical survey contains a wealth of inform
provocative insights.
That the poems of Ossian aroused an extra
accident: it would seem to have been Macp
intention from the outset. 'Pleasant is the
thura', PO, p. 158), and many readers no doub
of melancholy wash voluptuously over the

ed. by Howard Gaskill, with an introduction by Fion

Press, 1996), henceforth cited as PO.

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742 Ossian and Ossianism in Britain and Germany

der Wehmut', first coined by Michael Denis in his version of 'Carric-thura'

(Schmidt, p. 123) and persistently recurring thereafter, is perhaps already more
insidiously ecstatic?almost anticipating Mario Praz's 'Romantic Agony'?and
Werther shows all too plainly to what real tragedy such imaginative wallowing
could lead.) But the poems, as they originally appeared (literally) from the Fin-
gal volume onwards, resist such a simple emotional response, starting off rather,
or in addition, a number of intellectual hares (or, in Schmidt's preferred Fou-
cauldian jargon, initiating 'a series of polyvalent discourses'). Moore's facsimile
reprint reminds us of that original, literal appearance, in which the poems are
accompanied by extensive footnotes, elucidating Gaelic names and historical
references with a great show of (bogus?) scholarship, drawing attention to spe?
cific stylistic features, and establishing Ossian's epic credentials by pointing
out numerous parallels to passages in Homer, Vergil, and Milton. In Gaskill's
edition these notes are relegated to the end of the volume, but here we can see
them as Macpherson's original readers saw them, sometimes occupying more
than half the printed page, so that the reader has, as Gaskill observes, 'to con-
tend with pages containing minimal Ossian and maximal Macpherson, not to
mention Homer and Virgil' (PO, p. xxv, quoted by Moore, 1, lii). Moore stresses
'the need to come to terms with th[is] disruption of the experience of reading'
(ibid.). The notes draw attention to the problematic status ofthe poems, sup-
plementing but diffracting and at times implicitly subverting them. In saying
this, one might perhaps be thought to be imputing a greater degree of modern,
even proto-postmodern, literary self-awareness to Macpherson than is in fact
warranted. And yet the 'Preface' to Fingal in effect anticipates, even invites, all
the major subsequent controversies: on the age and authenticity of the poems,
their poetic merits, and the standards by which these are to be judged?by sup?
posedly universal, enlightened Augustan standards, in comparison with Homer
and company ('Homer ofthe North'), or as 'original compositions' in the pre-
Romantic sense, to be evaluated only by original standards intrinsic, not to
say peculiar, to themselves?; on their reliability as historical characterizations
of a 'primitive' civilization; on the rival claims of Scotland and Ireland to the
origin ofthe poems, and indeed ofthe Gaelic 'nation'. The Irish controversy
is further deliberately stirred up in the prefatory Dissertation to Temora, and a
specifically political provocation, in the Anglo-Scottish dimension, is implicit
in the dedication of Temora (and ofthe complete edition of 1765) to Macpher?
son's widely detested patron Lord Bute (who had meanwhile been the target
of a ribald Ossianic parody, quoted by Moore in Volume 111). Macpherson thus
comes out, as Moore puts it, 'all guns blazing' (1, lvii). At the same time he was
perhaps already becoming 'jealous of Ossian', as Gaskill has suggested (PO,
p. xxiv), implicitly reasserting his own claim to at least a share of Ossian's fame.
A complicated situation indeed for readers to be forced, or at any rate strongly
encouraged, to 'contend with'.
Both Moore and Schmidt also point out that Ossian did not appear, as is
sometimes supposed, completely out of the blue (emerging, fully armed like
Minerva, from swirls of Scotch mist). Moore prints in Volume 1 a number of
Macpherson's earlier poetic works, indicative of his cultural and political patri?
otism; also some important forerunners, Alexander Macdonald's preface to his

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 FRANCIS LAMPORT 743

The Resurrection of the Scottish Languag

Gaelic poetry to an English-speaking re
tion' of a Gaelic ballad, contributed to t
'translation' implicitly anticipates the d
above, for it assimilates the 'primitive' b
to lie precisely in its primitive qualities)
ling its length, ironing out its Herderia
underlining both its 'heroic' and its sen
simple unrhymed quatrains into elabora
stanzas. Similarly, many later adaptors o
'translators' but working, of necessity, f
from any Gaelic source, also found it des
verse forms, usually heroic couplets?'to
John Wodrow wrote in the introductor
(1769), 'and take occasion, by throwing
Poet's sentiments, to render the narratio
more clear and easy', thereby throwing
son's rhapsodic style (Moore, iv, 80; cf. 1
to the quite un-Ossianically jolly songs
Called Oscar and Malvina, or the Hall of
Tho' the scene of existence be clouded
Yet valour and beauty it's evils begui
To these shall the worthy, the gentle r
Or to live, or to die, by the sword an
[. . .] OSCAR, like the orb of day,
Drives each threat'ning storm away;
Far before his blazing eye,
Swift the mingled squadrons fly.
Let us then united raise
Songs of triumph in his praise [. . .]
(iv, 185, 188)

(The numerous 'dramatic' adaptations seem in fact to have had little success
on the stage, but Moore suggests that they may actually have been intended
primarily for reading rather than performance; this would not have been the
case, though, for operatic and other musical settings.) The critical debates,
particularly those regarding the poems' authenticity, also offer some amusing
moments. William Shaw's Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems Ascribed
to Ossian (1781), for example, recounts the lengths to which partisan investiga-
tions (on either side ofthe controversy) would go, ranging in Shaw's case from
creeping into 'humble cottages on all four [sie] to interrogate the inhabitants'
to offering to pay Professor Macleod of Glasgow zs. 6d. a word for genuine
specimens of Gaelic poetry (111, 264, 262). But there is much serious and valu?
able material here, from early reviews to substantial extracts from the report of
4 The date is given differently in the bibliographical note. Without thorough checking of the
often inaccessible sources, one can only hope that there are not too many errors and inconsistencies
of this kind. I noticed, however, a number of errors and infelicities in Moore's Introduction, and
what appeared to be errors of transcription in some of the texts reproduced in Volumes 111 and iv,
marring what is otherwise a very handsome production.

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744 Ossian and Ossianism in Britain and Germany

the Highland Society of Scotland's enquiry of 1805 into the authenticity ofthe
poems and the testimonies submitted (111, 366-96).
Comic relief is, however, not in plentiful supply. As Macpherson himself ob?
served, 'If he [Ossian] ever composed any thing of a merry turn, it is long since
lost' (PO, p. 472, note to 'Berrathon', quoted by Schmidt, 1, 131), and in the
German reception, as documented by Schmidt, seriousness and melancholic
gloom prevail. All too appropriate is the Freudian misprint in the Munchner
Ausgabe of Werther, whereby the hero is made to declare: 'Ossian hat in meinem
Herzen den Humor verdrangt.'5 (Can it really be the case, though, as Schmidt
avers, that there is no note of irony in Karl Teuthold Heinze's specification
(quoted by Schmidt, p. 470) for a grotto in Ossianic taste, with a fireplace dis?
guised as a hollow blasted oak and comfortable inglenook seats in stone-coloured
leather?) Schmidt traces in great detail the appearance of the Ossianic poems,
the cultural and political context from which they emerged, and the various 'dis?
courses' which they initiated in the critical reception?philological, aesthetic,
ethical, and cultural-political; finally (for this is Germany) a 'philosophical-
transcendental discourse' in which, taking up Hugh Blair's hint that the poems,
for all their notorious lack of any specific religious or mythological background,
nevertheless seem to offer a 'mythology of human nature' (PO, p. 368), writers
of the high Romantic tendency sought to find in them not merely exemplary
specimens of ancient poetry, or a portrait of a past golden age, or models of
human nature or human society, but a 'Zugang zu den Tiefenstrukturen der
Wahrheit' (p. 476). The poems seem to imply, but also to refute, something like
the favourite Romantic paradigm of a triadic historical progression. Ossian,
from the perspective of an alienated present in which he is forced to 'walk with
little men' (Fingal, Book 3, PO, p. 79), celebrates the great deeds of a heroic
past and sees in this commemorative act some hope for future regeneration, yet
this act (the poetry) is itself doomed to be forgotten; Ossian mourns his father
Fingal, but also his son Oscar, the destined bridegroom of his muse Malvina.
Nevertheless, the poetic act is seen as the sole remaining guarantee, and the
poet as the sole remaining guarantor, of true human values.
This is already powerfully articulated by Goethe, 'der wesentliche Popula-
risator Ossians innerhalb der deutschen Rezeption' (p. 723). Among Goethe's
dramatic figures, Gotz von Berlichingen is stylized, by significant distortion of
history, into an Ossianic poet-hero: like Ossian, the blind bard who was once a
hero, Gotz the man of action is reduced to chronicling his own heroic deeds for
the benefit of a doubtful posterity, and lamenting like Ossian the death (and in
this case the degeneracy) of his son, while Orest and Tasso are both, according
to Schmidt, presented as Ossianic melancholics?though one should observe
that Orest is cured of his paralysing melancholy and returned to the world of
action from which Tasso is barred, recovering only a kind of (Ossianic?) pride
in claiming to be the voice of an otherwise dumb, suffering humanity. From this
a line runs directly to Franz Spunda, the twentieth-century translator of Ossian
(1938), proclaiming the message of the poems to be 'den Hinfall der Welt zu
5 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Samtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens, ed. by Karl Richter
and others, 21 vols (Munich: Hanser, 1985?98), 11/ii, ed. by Hannelore Schlaffer, Hans J. Becker,
and Gerhard H. Muller (1987), p. 423.

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 FRANCIS LAMPORT 745

uberleben als Sieger im Geist' (Schmid

comments on Ossian are increasingly ne
for his early work is, Schmidt argues, d
und Wahrheit, but Ossian continues to i
his 'Asthetik der Dammerung', and he r
Reservoir' (p. 794).
Here, however, we encounter a problem
Schmidt's account. It is undoubtedly tru
major, and perhaps even more the minor,
the appearance of the Ossianic poems we
Ossianic imagery, and though this has b
by the majority of earlier German critic
Schlegel's untypical rejection of Ossian,
of Schiller, Jean Paul, Holderlin, and the
calls 'unmarkierte Ossianintertextualitat'
what point these echoes and reminiscen
actual allusions, to which the reader is e
other than a mere joyously grievous glow
ficult question (and one which Moore, 1,
of wider English patterns of influence).
The case of Kleist is particularly intere
sian, but the latter is, according to Sch
work, and Ossianic reminiscences have '
(p. 927). But the Ossianic images are d
distorted, even reversed in their signif
steht | Dem Sturm, doch die gesunde
emphasis); Penthesilea's suicide is an 'im
lungsmuster' (p. 935)?and Schmidt has e
Werther that according to Macpherson
the ancient Scots (PO, p. 415 n. 28, quot
these supposed Ossianic echoes seems to
of Macpherson's world-view: 'Der domes
lust der Idylle, Kleist laBt sie scheinbar
(p. 937). Is Kleist really using Ossianic r
a set of attitudes and sensibilities which
The problem is aggravated by the fact th
first appearance of Macpherson's Fragm
peppered with Ossianic reminiscences, m
hand; Schmidt refers to this as 'Potenzie
reference here is to Arnim), but in man
signification seems rather diluted than in
6 Kleist's only (surviving) recorded reference to
richs SeelandschafV: see my essay * "Eine wahrhaf
Patriotic Landscapes of the Goethezeit', Publicatio
73. I am now inclined to think that Kleist may h
patriotism of Ossian or Kosegarten (or Friedrich)
not to say bloodthirsty anti-Napoleonic sentimen
beneath the surface of many of the ostensibly unpo

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746 Ossian and Ossianism in Britain and Germany

explicit citations, of which there are a good many. The list could no doubt
be extended into the latter half of the nineteenth century, though there is a
slackening-off of literary reception after about 1840?paradoxically, at a time
when scholarly controversy about the authenticity of the poems was undergoing
something of a revival. But Schmidt jumps forward to give us a few examples of
surviving twentieth-century 'creative reception', with Hesse's characters in Un-
term Rad indulging in 'ossianische[] Stimmungen', or the bizarre citations and
montages of Gisela Prast's experimental Ossian novel of 1996. Though Prast's
actual knowledge of Macpherson and his work appears to be very superficial
(Schmidt, pp. 1129-32), it seems that the name of Ossian is still expected to
arouse some recognition and response in a modern German readership.
Limitation of space precludes further detailed discussion, but let it be said
again that these two handsome compilations complement each other to give a
remarkably comprehensive picture of the sixty-odd years of the Ossian pheno?
menon in Britain and Germany.
Worcester College, Oxford Francis Lamport

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