Poems of Ossian

[Splendour]

Anybody read it/has comment for it? I'm currently reading the Macpherson translation and found it very interesting, although the narrator complains too much and the sorrowful mood, while nicely put and quite different from, say, Iliad, is a bit too repetitive. Otherwise, it's a great piece of work.

[stlukesguild]

I've never read any of Ossian... or shall I say MacPherson outside the parts used by Goethe in his Sorrows of Young Werther. MacPherson claimed to have "translated" the poems from ancient Scots Gaelic and the work was immediately embraced by an audience hungry for romantic "primitivism" as a Northern equivalent to Homer and Virgil. The work inspired numerous artists, poets, and composers before suspicions were aroused. Ossian is now is largely seen to have been an elaborate literary hoax invented not "translated" by MacPherson... a hoax not far removed from that other great hoax of the era, the pseudo-medieval poems of Thomas Chatterton.

[Splendour]

In fact I first known of Ossian from Goethe's Young Werther. Despite its authenticity, I still think it's a worth read. Even if it is a hoax ---- Macpherson sure put a lot of work into it! It by definition really can't be called a poem, rather than a prose version, similar to prose versions of Homer and Virgil I suppose.

[AuntShecky]

I thought that Ossian was a mythological figure from Celtic folklore, not a "real" person who wrote poetry. But if the voice "complains too much" and sounds too "mournful"-- then whoever it is, we know he's Irish!

[NikolaiI]

"Ossian has displaced Homer in my heart." :) I love Werther so much. I love Ossian, though I've only really read Song of Selma.

[Niamh]

Wiki for you AuntShecky.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian
like you, Oisin (Ossian) is a character from Irish (and scots) mythology, son of fionn Mac Cumhail and a member of The Fianna and Lover of Niamh Na N'Og.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Niamh. I clicked on the site and saved the page, though I'm leery of "wikipedia." By the way, I can't pronounced Gaelic for the life o' me. Could you give us a
phonetic pronunciation of your screen name?

[Niamh]

Its Kneev :)
The Wiki info is more or less fine.

[AuntShecky]

Its Kneev :)



Kah-nee-v? from "Niamh"?
That's Gaelic for you, I guess. Never pronounced the way it's spelled --
like towns in upstate NY or Maine!

[Niamh]

:lol:
No as in knee with a v sound at the end. Or as Prole said, Neeve, like steeve...