Ossian - Reception

Reception

The poems achieved international success. Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson were great fans. They were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical writers such as Homer. Many writers were influenced by the works, including the young Walter Scott, and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects.

In the German-speaking states Michael Denis made the first full translation in 1768, inspiring the proto-nationalist poets Klopstock and Goethe, whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson's work figures prominently in a climactic scene of The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).

Goethe's associate Johann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titled Extract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples (1773) in the early days of the Sturm und Drang movement.

The poem was as much admired in Hungary as in France and Germany; Hungarian János Arany wrote "Homer and Ossian" in response, and several other Hungarian writers – Baróti Szabó, Csokonai, Sándor Kisfaludy, Kazinczy, Kölcsey, Ferenc Toldy, and Ágost Greguss, were also influenced by it.

In Italy the translation of Ossian by Melchiore Cesarotti made that work highly popular, and among others it influenced Ugo Foscolo who was Cesarotti's pupil in the University of Padua.

The first partial Polish translation of Ossian was made by Ignacy Krasicki in 1793. The complete translation appeared in 1830 by Seweryn Goszczyński.

The most influential Russian version of Ossian was the 1792 translation by Ermil Kostrov, who based his work on Pierre Le Tourneur's 1777 translation from the original.

The play Ossian, ou Les bardes by Le Sueur was a sell-out at the Paris Opera in 1804, and transformed his career. This led to its influence on Napoleon and Girodet's 1805 painting Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes (see above).

The poems also exerted an influence on the burgeoning of Romantic music, and Franz Schubert, in particular composed Lieder setting many of Ossian's poems. In 1829 Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to visit the Hebrides and composed the Hebrides Overture, better known as "Fingal's Cave". His friend Niels Gade devoted his first published work, the concert overture Efterklange af Ossian ("Echoes of Ossian") written in 1840, to the same subject.

In the 20th century Ossian became an exemplar of an imagined golden age of primitive pre-industrial culture to groups ranging from the Thule Society to the environmental movement.