§1. General Considerations upon the Reception of the Ossianic Poems in Germany.
Almost a century and a half has elapsed since the literary world of Europe bowed to a new offspring of the poetic muse that many thought would be immortal. The poems of Ossian were assigned to a ‘natural genius,’ whom men of unquestioned literary sagacity placed next to and even above Homer. Now they are almost forgotten, and their interest lies mainly in the influence they exerted upon some of the greatest minds of the 18th century.
It was in the year 1760[15] that James Macpherson, a Scotch youth of twenty–four,[16] 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[17] 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,’[18] 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.
Macpherson’s Ossian was not the first literary product of England that was received with favor by the Germans in the 18th century, but no other made its influence felt so strongly. A glance at the bibliography will show the importance of Ossian in the literary history of Germany. There was scarcely a writer of note who did not at some time or other fall under the spell. First came Klopstock, who, regarding Ossian as a German, found the songs of the bard a fit vehicle for the transmission of his patriotic ideas. Gerstenberg wrote a long drama in the Ossianic vein. Denis translated the poems of the bard and imitated him zealously. Kretschmann and many so–called ‘bards’ of smaller caliber fell into line. Herder hailed the advent of the songs with delight and based his theories of popular poetry largely upon them. Goethe, inspired by Herder, took a passing but deep interest in the literary curiosity, which left its impress upon a portion of his work.[19] Schiller’s earliest dramas show traces of Ossian’s influence. The Storm and Stress writers found nourishment in the writings of a genius who observed no rules. Merck edited an English edition of the poems. Lenz translated Fingal. The poets of the Göttinger Bund—Bürger, Hölty, Voss, Fried. Stolberg, Cramer—have all left testimony of their admiration for the Gaelic Homer. Then there were Claudius and Matthisson and Kosegarten, all influenced by Ossian. Even Gessner shows his indebtedness in some of his later idyls. Weisse and Haller wrote detailed reviews. Adelung strongly opposed the authenticity of the poems. Wilhelm Schlegel seconded the latter’s efforts. Friedrich Schlegel seriously discussed the authenticity. Jacob Grimm was extremely anxious to appear as their champion. The melancholy of Novalis sought consolation in the Ossianic ‘joy of grief.’ Tieck produced several imitations in his youth. Hölderlin also read the poems with ardor. Freiligrath wrote a ballad “Ossian.” And so on to the end of the chapter. Schubert and Brahms, Zumsteeg and Dittersdorf, Seckendorff and Löwe, and other German composers, have set portions of the poems to music. German artists have tried their hand at illustrating Ossianic scenes and depicting Gaelic heroes. But why pursue the subject further? It were almost impossible to overestimate the favor which the poems of Ossian once enjoyed in Germany. The baptismal name Oskar, so common in Germany, and those of Selma and Malvine,[20] still found there, serve as perpetual reminders of the proud rôle that Ossian, son of Fingal, once played on German soil.
In order to comprehend this wide–spread influence, let us glance at the literary condition of Germany in the seventh decade of the 18th century. As far as their success in Germany is concerned, the poems of Ossian could not have been ushered in at a more opportune moment. We may safely assert that at no time before were the chances of a favorable reception so good; and had they been published in the 19th century, their influence would have been nil. And it was fortunate in many respects that the songs appeared when they did, for although we have long ceased to regard Ossian as a classic, we have no reason to consider his influence pernicious. Of course the danger of drawing false conclusions and exaggerating the value of the poems was great, and that they worked a certain amount of mischief no one will deny. Yet the indisputable facts remain, that the poems of Ossian aroused a wide–spreading interest in the ‘tales of the times of old,’ that they helped to draw the attention of the Germans to their own rich store of popular poetry; that they aided in eradicating the general idea that German literature depended for its prosperity upon imitation. Themselves artificial, by a strange paradox they helped to dispel artificiality, and we really owe to Macpherson a debt of gratitude for making us acquainted with those ‘deeds of the days of other years’ when ‘Fingal fought and Ossian sung.’ The controversy that arose over the genuineness of the songs was instrumental in calling general attention to them. A fight usually attracts a crowd, and it did not fail to do so in this instance. Aspirants for critical honors were allured into the polemical arena like moths into the flame. The majority of the German critics came nobly to Macpherson’s defense, and their decided views as to the authenticity and beauty of the poems had a marked effect upon the opinions of their readers.
And then the poems appeared in English, a language that had become interesting to the Germans, especially after the Seven Years’ War drew Prussia and England closer together. It did not require a thorough knowledge of English to read Ossian. The periods were short and simple, involved constructions were almost entirely lacking, and repetitions of the same thought in terms virtually similar were of frequent occurrence. The episodes themselves were simple and called for no serious application of the reasoning powers; any complications that might arise were explained away by a careful argument preceding each poem, and those who were curious to know more about the origin and age of the poems found abundant material to satisfy them in the various dissertations prefixed to many of the editions and translations. On the whole, nothing in the entire range of English literature could have been found that better met the demand for a text shorn of the most common difficulties. The number of English reprints that appeared in Germany is incontrovertible evidence of the frequency with which these poems were read in the original. And it is patent that this circumstance contributed in some measure to their popularity. A German of the 18th century, possessed of a moderate knowledge of English, would be less drawn to Paradise Lost than to Ossian. While the nature of the subject is the primary cause for the large number of German translations of Ossian, the apparent simplicity of the material no doubt induced more than one person to present his countrymen with a new translation. And thus it came about that Ossian was in more cases than one translated into German by men who absolutely lacked poetic talent. The earliest translations were in rhythmic prose, a fact that did much to increase the popularity of this style of writing in Germany at that time. About the time of Klopstock’s entrance upon the literary stage, and for some time afterwards, the theory widely prevailed, that the poet enters into more direct contact with nature by clothing his thoughts in prose. This prose, however, was to be a poetic prose, poetic and at the same time natural; for prose was regarded as the most natural expression of the soul. Surely the sensation that Ossian made in Germany would not have been so prodigious had his poems appeared in meter. An indignant protest arose on all sides when Denis introduced an innovation by publishing a translation in hexameters.[21] Had the poems of Ossian appeared originally in the measures of the so–called Gaelic originals, they might have found readier acceptance with scholars, but scarcely with the reading public. There was something in Macpherson’s abrupt but pompous, rhapsodical, measured prose per se that won the hearts of the admirers of ‘these glorious remains of antiquity.’
Two distinct tendencies stand out prominently on the literary horizon of Germany in the middle of the 18th century: imitation of the ancients, and the return to nature as preached by Rousseau and his disciples. It is a signal coincidence that Macpherson’s poems and Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse appeared about the same time. It is well known with what acclaim Rousseau’s doctrines were hailed in Germany. To a people professedly longing for a return to the delights of savage life, nothing could have been more opportune than the practical illustration of Rousseau’s theories in the account of the crude civilization depicted by Macpherson, whose characters, while leading a life of freedom in the wild fastnesses of the mountains, far from the haunts of civilized man, had been supplied by Macpherson with a veneer of nobility and refinement that would have better befitted a powdered and perfumed gallant of the 18th century. There are some points of resemblance between the panegyrists of Thomson’s Seasons, who sang the beauties of the sunrise but never rose before noon, and those followers of Rousseau who never wearied of sighing for the advantages of savage life, but would have indignantly declined to be taken at their word and transported among a tribe of Patagonians. The heroes of Ossian were more to their taste: these at least made some pretension to refinement of manners, even if they did not powder their hair nor use snuff. We can vividly picture to ourselves the immense stir that the sudden appearance of Ossian must have made in a society that was ready to embrace Rousseau’s cause with such alacrity.[22] To a certain extent the return to nature went hand in hand with the awakening of a love for wild and lonely scenery, and here, also, Macpherson gave all that could be demanded, even by the most fastidious. Rousseau was a true lover of nature; he was passionately fond of the Alps, and his example inspired the Germans with a new love for mountain scenery. His writings did much to bring on the era of nature–worship in Germany, and they were nobly seconded by Macpherson’s descriptions of the Scottish Highlands.
In an age when it was considered good taste to imitate the ancients, Ossian could not fail to arouse more than passing interest. From imitation of the French and English, the Germans had, in accordance with the ideas of Lessing, come back to the Greek source. But even in imitation of the Greeks there was no real salvation. It needed a Klopstock to arouse an interest in Germanic antiquity, in a civilization that was less alien to the specifically German Anschauung. And here Ossian’s beneficent influence enters, for his works undoubtedly increased the interest that was beginning to be taken by the Germans in their own antiquity. Klopstock regarded Ossian as a German, and Herder based many a theory of the folk–song upon the lays of the Gaelic bard. The influence, then, that Ossian had in this respect was rather an indirect one. When we regard his direct influence in the matter of imitation, the outlook is not so encouraging. Ossian’s world is encompassed by narrow bounds, the field of his images and descriptions is small, the emotions and sentiments expressed by his actors are confined to a limited sphere; and all this, coupled with the continual repetitions, greatly simplifies the process of direct imitation. And this very simplicity proved an irresistible temptation and a snare to many not at all qualified to enter the lists. Thus we find sorrowful examples of attempts at Ossianic imitation in the work of some of the so–called ‘bards’ and elsewhere. One thing Ossian did, however: he aided Klopstock in his attempt to elevate the personal rank of the poet. At a time when Klopstock was making strenuous efforts in this direction, it was a great gain for those similarly minded to be able to point to the times of old, when the bard was placed upon an equal footing with the warrior and held in extraordinary esteem by the people. If Macpherson involuntarily contributed his mite to the spread of the idea that the poet’s vocation is a noble one, he deserves our sincere gratitude.
The influence exercised in Germany by Shakspere and by Bishop Percy’s Reliques in several particulars goes hand in hand with that of Ossian. Herder grasped all three in close connection, but we shall postpone our account of their inter–relation to the paragraphs on Herder. A few words are due, however, to Young’s Night Thoughts and his Conjectures on Original Composition,[23] in the latter of which the poets of the Storm and Stress found much fuel for their fire. Original genius is a shibboleth frequently met with in the German literature of the time. In Shakspere the Germans believed they had discovered a true original genius, and he came to be regarded as the perfect type of the natural poet, who, throwing aside existing rules and conventionalities, became a law unto himself. But when they came to Ossian, they discovered a man that really stood in much closer communion with nature than even Shakspere, for the former lived in surroundings that precluded the establishment of fixed rules of poetical composition. If the poems of Ossian were genuine—and it took a very long time to convince the Germans of the fact that they were not—here they had certainly to deal with a poet who was a genius born not made—an undeniable original. Dr. Blair had in his “Critical Dissertation” undertaken to make a comparison of the characteristics of the work of Ossian and Homer, and nowhere did his conclusion fall upon more willing ears than in Germany. Soon a most delightful controversy arose over the relative excellence of Homer and Ossian, and it was intensified by the appearance of Robert Wood’s Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer (1769), in which, too, Homer was proclaimed as a product of the soil. Homer generally came out second best in the comparison, critics vieing with one another in discovering some new phase wherein Homer could with apparent justice be placed beneath Ossian.[24] And how many German translations of Ossian had appeared before one respectable version of Homer came into being! The latter’s heroes were branded not only as cruel and artful, but as possessed of other unattractive qualities that relegated them to a lower level than the characters depicted by Ossian, who never failed to develop the attributes that distinguish the true hero, and so on ad absurdum. Fortunately the aberration was only temporary. No doubt the frequent comparisons are responsible for the Homeric dress occasionally given to Ossian’s warriors in illustrations; e. g., in No. 14 of Ruhl’s sketches, Oscar wears a Greek helmet, coat–of–mail, etc.
A translation of the Night Thoughts[25] by Johann Arnold Ebert (1723–95) had appeared in 1760 and its influence soon began to manifest itself in the odes of Klopstock and his pupils. The profound melancholy underlying the Thoughts was the leading cause of its popularity in Germany and in a measure paved the way for the related strain that runs through Ossian. In this respect, then, the influence of the one accentuated that of the other, although the popularity of Young waned noticeably after the appearance of Ossian. Closely bound up with the spirit of melancholy is that of sentimentality, and here again Ossian’s sway is unmistakable. Before the appearance of Werthers Leiden (1774), the influence of Ossian had been felt in several directions, but it was reserved for Goethe to open up a new field for the Gaelic bard. Feeling began to enter the arena,[26] and Ossian’s ‘joy of grief’[27] began to symbolize for many a German youth and maiden “the shower of spring, when it softens the branch of the oak, and the young leaf rears its green head.” Goethe, through his incomparable translation of “The Songs of Selma” in Werthers Leiden, served to increase the admiration that had so willingly been offered on the shrine of Ossian. But we must not anticipate the paragraphs on Goethe.
And now that the famous bard had once been started upon his triumphal career, nothing of importance occurred for some years to disturb the general tenor of his fame. The work of translation and imitation went on and there was always some one prepared to enter the lists as his champion. For a long time it was considered bad form for a German critic to doubt the authenticity of the poems. Not one had the courage of his convictions, not one was prepared to damn with faint praise. A number of literati had their private doubts as to the genuineness of the poems, but they feared to share their opinions with the public—as witness the following passage in a letter of Klotz to Denis, dated Halle, July 6, 1769: “Aufrichtig unter uns geredet (denn dem Publico mag ich, darf ich es nicht sagen) ich kann mich immer noch nicht überreden, dass diese Gedichte völlig ächt wären, dass gar keine neuere Hand an ihnen polirt, gewisse Bilder abgeändert, andere hinzugesetzt hätte u. s. w.”[28] And Denis says in his reply: “Ich hatte ihn auch, diesen Zweifel; allein D. Blair’s Abhandlung, und Macphersons Betheurungen haben mich hierüber ziemlich beruhiget. Dennoch mag wohl an den Übergängen, an den Verbindungen der Stücke hin und wieder eine neuere Hand polieret haben.”[29] Ossian filled so many long–felt wants, that it was not to be expected that the Germans would give him up easily, and yet this one–sided chorus of praise could not satisfy perpetually.
When the poets of the Romantic School arrive upon the scene, Ossian has, to be sure, lost some of his old–time glory, yet he is still ready to respond to the calls made upon him. Macpherson died in 1796, and soon afterwards steps were taken looking towards the publication of the supposed Gaelic originals. Rumors of the circumstance reached Germany and called forth wide–spread interest. The dying embers were for the last time blown into a bright flame, to which fact the mass of Ossianic literature which appeared from 1800 to 1808 clearly attests. Much of the renewed interest must be ascribed to the influence of Ahlwardt, who prepared a translation from the original Gaelic (1811). The excellence of this translation was trumpeted throughout the land long before its appearance, a specimen was published as early as 1807 and widely reviewed, so that when the complete translation finally appeared, little was left to be said. Ahlwardt’s translation really marks the beginning of the end. What a lowering from their former position the poems had suffered even at the beginning of the century, is shown by a statement made by Schröder in the preface to his translation of Fingal (1800), where he refers to Ossian as one of those poets that are praised more than read. We still meet with an occasional translation and imitation, to be sure, but they are of little weight when compared with the hold the Ossianic craze once had on the German people. Ossian came generally to have more interest for the philologist than for the man of letters. More than one critic no longer concealed his doubts of the authenticity, until finally Mrs. Robinson’s (Talvj’s) work upon the non–genuineness of the poems was published (1840), which treatise marks the turning–point in German Ossian criticism. Since Talvj’s days the Celtic scholars of Germany have sought to make good the errors into which their predecessors of the previous century had fallen, and to them we owe much of the light that has been shed upon the long–mooted question in comparatively recent years. At the present day Ossian is read but little in Germany, and where he is known attention has generally been called to him by Goethe’s famous translation of “The Songs of Selma.” He still attracts the average reader if read in snatches, but few will be found who can derive pleasure from the reading of his entire works. Macpherson’s Ossian has become the property of the literary historian, and the genuine old folk–songs connected with his name that of the Celtic scholar.