Soteria: The Poems of Ossian: how good are they?

What I was keen to do in preparing this for this meeting of Soteria, was to try to taste, with an unprejudiced palette, that wine under the Ossian label that had caused Thomas Jefferson, the polymathic principal author of the American Declaration of Independence and third President of his country, to write in 1773, to the family of James Macpherson gushingly: ““These pieces have been and will, I think, during my life, continue to be to me the sources of daily and exalted pleasures. The tender and the sublime emotions of the mind were never before so wrought up by the human hand. I am not ashamed to own that I think this rude bard of the North the greatest poet that has ever existed.” And I think his opinion is not eccentrically unrepresentative of that wave of regard for Ossian that swept across the Western world. Sir Walter Scott said of Fingal, one of the characters of the poems, whom we shall be encountering later, that he combined "all the strength and bravery of Achilles, with the courtesy, sentiment, and high-breeding of Sir Charles Grandison," the latter being a character created by Samuel Richardson specifically to depict a virtuous man.

Four more facts.

The Poems of Ossian was said to be Napoleon’s favourite book. One of the most popular pieces of Mendelsohn “the Hebrides Overture” is subtitled “Fingal’s Cave”. The female name “Fiona” was invented by Macpherson, and he was was honoured with being buried in Westminster Abbey.

Are these works a relatively bare hook, unto which people of the late 18th century hung their various desires about the nobility of those who pre-dated the refinements and restrictions which in their way these people were themselves in reaction against?

[Mythologos]

Correction: MacPherson made all his source texts available to the public, but no one bothered to look at them. He also produced masses of footnotes to answer his critics as well as 2 volumes of British/Irish/Scottish history to expound on the concepts that shaped Ossian. MacPherson never forged a single document. He believed what he said.

[Mythologos]

I'd also like to add that the poems did not "sink without a trace"! (1) The popularity and influence of Ossian stretched all the way to the end of the 19th century and informed most of what we consider to be popular culture today (2) By the 20th century the literature of the 18th century was the province of academia - MacPherson's reputation had been destroyed by the racist writings and unproven accusations of Samuel Johnson and subsequent biased and baseless attacks on his sincerity; without that interference, Ossian would still be popular and studied. You have it quite backwards: there is No Evidence that MacPherson was a "hoaxer" or a "forger", and it is entirely possible that the popular Scottish traditions concerning Ossian were rooted in a real person.

[whiskeyvictor]

3:24: Ossian (Irish Oisin) was the son of Fingal (Irish Fionn mac Cumhaill) and the father of Oscar (Oscur in the "Fragments").

[JudgeCorser]

I've heard that this book was napoleon's favorite work (THE Napoleon)

Could not find it anywhere, thanks for this video

[esbee]

Just as prejudiced and biased as MacPherson's critics were in his day.

[steadhelium]

I am leaving a comment just to test that this function works.