Blind Ossian's Fingal : Fragments and Controversy. Cet article n’est pas disponible.Blind Ossian's Fingal : Fragments and Controversy

To the accompaniment of the harp, Ossian enchanted his third-century listeners with tales of savage battles, magnanimous victories, graceful defeats, doomed romances and bloody feuds. The rediscovered Ossianic epics inspired the Romantic movement in Europe, but caused a political storm in Britain and up to recently have been denounced as one of the greatest literary hoaxes of all time. When James Macpherson published his translations of the poetry of Ossian, a third-century Highland bard, they were an instant success. However, the plaudits soon gave way to controversy. Were the poems part of a great Gaelic oral tradition, or the work of Macpherson s imagination? 'They contain the purest and most animating principles and examples of true honour, courage and discipline, and all the heroic virtues that can possibly exist.' NAPOLEON

Editors Allan Burnett and Linda Andersson Burnett take a fresh look at the twists and turns of the Ossian story. They investigate the controversy surrounding the poems, what inspired Macpherson to put such works together, and provide an insight into why the poems captured the public imagination. This volume includes Fragments of Ancient Poetry and Fingal together with contemporary commentary.

James Macpherson (1736-1796) was born in Badenoch, Inverness-shire. He studied in Aberdeen and Edinburgh and translated many poems from Gaelic which were allegedly found in different places of the Scottish Highlands, some of them published in 1760 as Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland. Very soon he had detractors who did not believe of the authenticity of the poems but also supporters, among whom Hugh Blair, who helped MacPherson in carrying out his research. Writer, politician and historian, he died in his native Inverness-shire.