Ossian

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Ossian is a supposedly Old Gaelic epic from Celtic mythology . These “songs of Ossian ” were actually written by the Scot James Macpherson (1736–1796). He chose Oisín , the son of Fionn mac Cumhail, as the eponymous model for the title character . The content of the chants are epic battles and the fate of selected noble heroes who mostly strive to save kingdoms.

Emergence

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A critic from Edinburgh , Hugh Blair , published "Fragments of Ancient Poetry" in 1760 ("Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Scottish Highlands , translated from Gaelic or Ersic"). Blair had asked a tutor named James Macpherson to collect the "ancient Gaelic chants of the homeland". Not knowing where to find them, he wrote them himself, claiming to have translated them from Gaelic into English.

Blair was enthusiastic and suspected that the alleged chants from Celtic prehistoric times were fragments of a national epic that has not yet been shown in Scotland . As the author of the work, Blair “identified” Ossian , known from Scottish Gaelic mythology , and his hero must be the legendary King Fingal (Fionn). At Blair's urging, Macpherson delivered the epic poems "Fingal" and "Temora", which were published in 1762 and 1763, respectively.

Samuel Johnson described these seals in the same year as "not authentic and, secondly, poetically without value". In 1764 the “ Journal des sçavans ” in Paris also expressed serious doubts. In a public dispute, Johnson Macpherson accused him of "pure imposture " and asked him to produce original manuscripts. The public took little notice of this controversy. The chants were eagerly received and in 1765, now completed to “Works of Ossian” (“Ossian's Chants”), brought out in a summarized manner. Many readers of the pre- romantic period were receptive to the dark and the ancient (see Schauerroman ) and willingly believed in the rediscovery of a national epic.

People and places

In addition to the eponymous Ossian, his father Fingal and his son Oscar (the mythological Oscar ), Macpherson has a number of characters appear, some of which are based on Celtic legendary figures, but some were also freely invented. The locations are sometimes real, sometimes fiction.

These include: Fingal's childhood sweetheart Agandecca ; Oscar's fiancée Malvina ; Agandecca's father, King Starno of Lochlin ; Agandecca's brother Swaran ; Oscar's killer Cairbar , a reflection of Cairbre Lifechar ; and the general Cuthullin , a reflection of Cú Chulainn .

The action takes place: in Morven , the kingdom of Fingal in the Scottish highlands; in Selma , Fingals Castle; in Temora, the historical Temair (Tara); and in Lochlin ( Scandinavia ).

International reception

"Ossian's" works were first translated into German by Rudolf Erich Raspe in the Hanoverian Magazine in 1764. The translation by the Austrian writer and librarian Michael Denis followed in 1768/69 . In 1787, Colonel Edmund von Harold , who served in the Palatinate, published further alleged chants. Louise Otto-Peters (1819–1895) wrote a free adaptation of the Ossian as a text template for the opera “Armor and Daura” (1869) by the composer Ferdinand Heinrich Thieriot (1838–1919).

Far beyond the borders of Scotland, “Ossian” inspired a whole generation of poets and contributed to the Sturm und Drang . Herder , a philosopher and collector of folk songs, brought his protégé Goethe closer to the " Homer of the North", who in turn quoted him in Werther . Inspired by partial translations by the theologian and poet Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten , the North German romantics Philipp Otto Runge and Friedrich August von Klinkowström dealt artistically with the Ossian subject. In France, Madame de Staël and Napoléon were among the readers and admirers. In 1841 the Danish composer and conductor Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817–1890) submitted his overture , which was later published under the title “Nachklänge von Ossian” as op. 1, to a composition competition organized by the Copenhagen Music Association ( Musikforeningen ) and won first prize with the work . A total of around 300 "Ossian" compositions are known.

The Ossian hero myths also caught on with some of the rulers of the time: In 1811 Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned the painter Ingres with a painting on the Ossian theme for his future bedroom in the Quirinal Palace in Rome, which was completed in 1813: the singer sees his father Fingal, his son, in a dream Oskar, based on the mythological Oscar of the same name, and his lover Malvina. The lasting popularity of the first name Oskar is also due to the Ossian's reception.

As early as 1801, Bonaparte was accepted into the Ossian heroic sky: Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson , a student of David , showed the young general who recommended the fallen soldiers of his army to the singer Ossian - surrounded by eagle wings and surrounded by hares-striking mermaids .

expenditure

  • James Macpherson's Ossian. Facsimile reprint of the first edition 1762/63 with accompanying volume: The variants . Edited by Otto L. Jiriczek. Carl Winters University Bookstore Heidelberg 1940.
  • The poems of Ossian and related works . Edited by Howard Gaskill. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1996, ISBN 0-7486-0707-2

A commented German edition was published in 2003 as the 3rd volume of Wolf Gerhard Schmidt's dissertation on Ossian reception (see section Literature )

Since 1768 there have been a total of 14 complete editions of the Ossian poems translated into German, including the well-known one by Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg :

Another translation that is considered to be one of the best was created by the classical philologist Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt from Greifswald :

  • Ossian's poems from Gaelic in the syllable measure of the original. 8 vols., Leipzig, 1811.

See also

literature

  • Paul J. de Gategno: James Macpherson . Twayne's English Authors Series No. 467. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989.
  • Manuela Jahrmärker: Ossian - A figure and an idea of ​​the European music theater around 1800 . (Berlin Music Studies 2), Studio Verlag. Berlin 1993. ISBN 978-3-89564-087-2
  • Axel Koehler: The heroes of Fianna: Goethe and Ossian. Writings and materials, 108th Fantastic Library Wetzlar , 2011 (without ISBN)
  • Bailey Saunders: The Life and Letters of James Macpherson . London, 1894; repr. New York: Haskell House, 1968.
  • Wolf Gerhard Schmidt: "Homer of the North" and "Mother of Romanticism". James Macpherson's Ossian and its reception in German-language literature . De Gruyter, Berlin 2003 (also dissertation, Saarbrücken University 2002)
    • Volume 1: James Macpherson's Ossian, contemporary discourses and the early phase of German reception . De Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-017924-5
    • Volume 2: The main and late phases of German reception. Bibliography of international source texts and research literature . De Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-017924-5
    • Volume 3: Annotated new edition of German translations of the “Fragments of ancient poetry” (1766), the “Poems of Ossian” (1782) as well as the prefaces and treatises by Hugh Blair and James Macpherson . De Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-017923-7
    • Volume 4: Commented new edition of important texts on German reception . De Gruyter, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-11-017937-7
  • John Semple Smart: James Macpherson: An Episode in Literature . London: 1905.
  • Susanne Strasser-Klotz: Runge and Ossian. Art, literature, color theory . Dissertation, University of Regensburg 1995 ( full text )
  • Fiona Stafford: The Sublime Savage: A Study of James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian . Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1988.
  • Matthias Wessel: The Ossian poetry in musical composition . (= Publications of the Hanover University of Music and Drama; Vol. 6). Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1994, ISBN 3-89007-295-X (plus dissertation, HMT Hannover 1992)

Web links

Commons : Ossian  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Goethe thought the chants were real. See Herbert Rosendorfer : German History. One try. Vol. 6: Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa and the end of the Old Kingdom. Nymphenburger, Munich 2010. ISBN 3485013102 , p. 346
  2. ^ Paul F. Moulton, Of Bards and Harps. The Influence of Ossian on Musical Style. Master's thesis, Florida State University 2005
  3. ↑ Alexander Demandt: The Celts. Munich 1998, p. 115
  4. ↑ Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , p. 23 (short biography of Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt).