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The intellectual scope and cultural impact of British writers cannot be assessed without reference to their European fortunes. This collection of 20 essays, prepared by an international team of scholars, critics and translators, records the ways in which Macpherson's Ossian has been received, translated and published in different areas of Europe. The Ossian poems caused a sensation on their first appearance in the 1760's. Indeed, there is hardly a major Romantic poet on whom they failed to make a significant impression. The essays brought together in this volume explore the reception of Ossian

Literary forgeries and mystifications --- European literature --- Mythology, Celtic, in literature. --- Celts in literature. --- History --- Scottish influences. --- Macpherson, James, --- Ossian, --- Oisín, --- Makferson, Džejms --- Influence. --- Appreciation --- Translations --- History and criticism. --- In literature. --- 18th century --- Celts in literature --- Macpherson, James --- Influence --- Europe --- History and criticism --- Mythology [Celtic ] --- In literature --- Scottish influences --- Ossian

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The appearance of James Macpherson's Ossian in the 1760s caused an international sensation. The discovery of poetic fragments that seemed to have survived in the Highlands of Scotland for some 1500 years gripped the imagination of the reading public, who seized eagerly on the newly available texts for glimpses of a lost primitive world. That Macpherson's versions of the ancient heroic verse were more creative adaptations of the oral tradition than literal translations of a clearly identifiable original may have exercised contemporary antiquarians and contributed eventually to a decline in the popularity of Ossian. Yet for most early readers, as for generations of enthusiastic followers, what mattered was not the accuracy of the translation, but the excitement of encountering the primitive, and the mood engendered by the process of reading. The essays in this collection represent an attempt by late twentieth-century readers to chart the cultural currents that flowed into Macpherson's texts, and to examine their peculiar energy. Scholars distinguished in the fields of Gaelic, German, Irish, Scottish, French, English and American literature, language, history and cultural studies have each contributed to the exploration of Macpherson's achievement, with the aim of situating his notoriously elusive texts in a web of diverse contexts. Important new research into the traditional Gaelic sources is placed side by side with discussions of the more immediate political impetus of his poetry, while studies of the reception of Ossian in Scotland, Germany, France and England are part of the larger recognition of the cultural significance of Macpherson's work, and its importance to issues of fragmentation, liminality, colonialism, national identity, sensibility and gender.

Literary forgeries and mystifications. --- Macpherson, James, --- Ossian,