The Poems
In 1760 Macpherson published the English-language text Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Gaelic or Erse language.
Later that year. Macpherson claimed, he obtained further manuscripts and in 1761 he claimed to have found an epic on the subject of the hero Fingal, written by Ossian. The name Fingal or Fionnghall means "white stranger".
According to Macpherson's prefatory material, his publisher, claiming that there was no market for these works except in English, required that they be translated. Macpherson published these translations during the next few years, culminating in a collected edition, The Works of Ossian, in 1765. The most famous of these Ossianic poems was Fingal, written in 1762.
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Famous quotes containing the word poems:
“The genuine remains of Ossian, or those ancient poems which bear his name, though of less fame and extent, are, in many respects, of the same stamp with the Iliad itself. He asserts the dignity of the bard no less than Homer, and in his era, we hear of no other priest than he.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)