Ossian in Germany: Bibliography, General Survey, Ossian's Influence upon Klopstock and the Bards

It was in the year 1760 that James Macpherson, a Scotch youth of twenty–four, published in Edinburgh some Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Gallic or Erse Language. Neither Macpherson nor his friends anticipated the tremendous sensation these fragments were destined to make, not only in Scotland and England, but on the whole continent of Europe. But Macpherson was not the man to underestimate the position which he had suddenly attained, and accordingly, emboldened by his initial success, he published in 1761 Fingal, an epic poem in six books, and in 1763 Temora in eight books. With the dispute over the authenticity of the poems we are not here concerned. The researches of modern Celtic scholars have cast much light upon the long–disputed question. They have accorded Macpherson the place that in justice belongs to him, the place of a ‘skillful artificer,’ who took a few crude scattered fragments of Irish—not distinctively Scotch—folk–songs as his foundation, and not only lengthened them into more elaborate and refined poems, but built up long epics, which, although accepted as genuine by a credulous age in a moment of blind enthusiasm, have not been able to withstand the scrutiny of the unprejudiced scholar.