- James Macpherson
Infobox Writer
name = Seumas Mac a' Phearsain
James Macpherson|thumb|James Macpherson
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1736|10|27|df=y
birth_place =Ruthven ,Badenoch ,Inverness-shire , Highland.
death_date = death date and age|1796|02|17|1736|10|27|df=y
death_place =Inverness ,England
occupation = Poet, Translator
movement =Romanticism
genre =
magnum_opus =
influences =Bible , Dante, Milton, Swedenborg
influenced = Yeats,Hart Crane ,Age of the Romantics
footnotes =James Macpherson ( _gd. Seumas Mac a' Phearsain;
27 October 1736 ndash17 February 1796 ) was a Scottishpoet , known as the "translator" of theOssian cycle of poems.Early life
Macpherson was born at Ruthven in the
parish ofKingussie ,Badenoch ,Inverness-shire , Highland. In 1753, he was sent toKing's College, Aberdeen , moving two years later toMarischal College (the two institutions later became theUniversity of Aberdeen ). He then went to Edinburgh for just over a year, but it is unknown whether he studied at the university. He is said to have written over 4,000 lines of verse while a student; some of this was later published, notably "The Highlander" (1758), which he is said to have tried to suppress afterwards.Collecting Scottish Gaelic poetry
On leaving college, he returned to Ruthven to teach in the school there. At
Moffat he metJohn Home , the author of "Douglas", for whom he recited some Gaelic verses from memory. He also showed him manuscripts of Gaelic poetry, supposed to have been picked up in thehighlands and islands , and, encouraged by Home and others, he produced a number of piecestranslate d from the Scottish Gaelic, which he was induced to publish atEdinburgh in 1760 as "Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland ". DrHugh Blair , who was a firm believer in the authenticity of the poems, raised a subscription to allow Macpherson to pursue his Gaelic researches.In the autumn he set out to visit western Inverness-shire, the islands of Skye,
North Uist ,South Uist andBenbecula . He obtained manuscripts which he translated with the assistance ofCaptain Morrison and the Rev.A Gallie . Later in the year he made an expedition to Mull,Argyll , when he obtained other manuscripts."Ossian"
In 1761 he announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of "Fingal" (related to the Irish mythological character
Fionn mac Cumhaill /Finn McCool) written byOssian (based on Fionn's sonOisín ), and in December he published "Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language", written in the musical measuredprose of which he had made use in his earlier volume. "Temora" followed in 1763, and a collected edition, "The Works of Ossian ", in 1765. The name Fingal or "Fionnghall" means "white stranger", [ [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=fingal Behind the Name: View Name: Fingal] ] and it is suggested that the name was rendered as Fingal through a derivation of the name which in old Gaelic would appear as Finn. [ [http://www.sundown.pair.com/SundownShores/Volume_IV/notes.htm Notes to the first edition] ; MacPherson was himself, of course, a Gaelic speaker.]The authenticity of these so-called
translation s from the works of a 3rd centurybard was immediately challenged by Irishhistorian s, who noted its technical errors in chronology, its technical errors in the forming of Gaelic names, and commented on the implausibility of many of MacPherson's claims, none of which MacPherson was able to refute. More forceful denunciations were later made by Dr.Samuel Johnson , who asserted (in "A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland ", 1775) that MacPherson had found fragments of poems and stories, and then woven them into a romance of his own composition. Further challenges and defences were made well into the nineteenth century, but the issue was moot by then. Macpherson never produced the originals that he claimed existed.Lost in the controversy is the fact that many Gaelic-speaking critics of Ossian's legitimacy praised MacPherson's talent for Gaelic poetry.
Later works
In 1764 he was made secretary to the colonial governor George Johnstone at
Pensacola, Florida , and when he returned, two years later, to Great Britain, after a quarrel with Johnstone, he was allowed to retain his salary as a pension. He went on to write several historical works, the most important of which was "Original Papers, containing the Secret History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover ", to which are prefixed "Extracts from the Life of James II ", as written by himself (1775). He enjoyed a salary for defending the policy ofLord North 's government, and held the lucrative post of London agent to nabob ofArcot . He entered parliament in 1780, asMember of Parliament for Camelford and continued to sit until his death. In his later years he bought an estate, to which he gave the name of Belville, in his nativecounty ofInverness , where he died.Legacy
After Macpherson's death,
Malcolm Laing , in an appendix to his "History of Scotland" (1800), propounded the extreme view that the so-called Ossianic poems were altogether modern in origin, and that Macpherson's authorities were practically non-existent. Much of Macpherson's matter is clearly his own, and he confounds the stories belonging to different cycles. But apart from the doubtful morality of his transactions he must still be regarded as one of the great Scottish writers. The varied sources of his work and its worthlessness as a transcript of actual Celtic poems do not alter the fact that he produced a work of art which by its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more than any single work to bring about the romantic movement in European, and especially in German, literature. It was speedily translated into many European languages, and Herder and Goethe (in his earlier period) were among its profound admirers. Goethe incorporated his translation of a part of the work into his novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther ".Melchiore Cesarotti 's Italian translation was one ofNapoleon 's favourite books.His legacy indirectly includes the naming of
Fingal's Cave on the island ofStaffa . The original gaelic name is "An Uamh Bhin" - 'the melodious cave' but it was renamed bySir Joseph Banks in 1772 at the height of Macpherson's popularity. [Bray, Elizabeth (1996) "The Discovery of the Hebrides: Voyages to the Western Isles 1745-1883". Edinburgh. Birlinn.] [Haswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) "The Scottish Islands". Edinburgh. Canongate]References
ources for further reading
*"The Poems of Ossian and other related Works", ed. Howard Gaskill, introd. Fiona Stafford, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996)
*"The Reception of Ossian in Europe", edited by Howard Gaskill, (London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004).
*"The Sublime Savage", by Fiona Stafford
*"Ossian Revisited*, by Howard Gaskil (ed.)External links
* [http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1287 Literary Encyclopedia: Ossian]
* [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/macpherson_james.htm Significant Scots - James MacPherson]
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/pt4/index.htm Popular Tales of the West Highlands by J. F. Campbell Volume IV (1890)]
* [http://www.exclassics.com/ossian/ossintro.htm The Poetical Works of Ossian] at the Ex-Classics Web Site
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