The subject of Ossian’s influence upon Klopstock, were it to receive exhaustive treatment, would greatly exceed the space we can allot to it in a general discussion of the effect that Ossian produced in Germany, and we shall therefore confine ourselves here largely to generalities and attempt only a broad sketch of Klopstock’s attitude toward the Gaelic bard. If we are to accept literally the statement made by Klopstock in a letter to Gerstenberg,[48] to the effect that he did not adopt the mythology of his forefathers until after the appearance of the “Lied eines Skalden” (1766), we ought to begin our discussion with Gerstenberg. It appears, however, that Klopstock gave some attention to old Germanic history and mythology previous to 1766.[49] At any rate, he fell under Ossian’s influence two years before, and set the example to a number of others. It is doubtful whether Ossian of himself would have had as strong an influence upon the so–called bards, had not Klopstock given the necessary encouragement; Gerstenberg’s example alone could not have been expected to produce the same results as that of the author of the Messiah.[50] Indeed, the influences that Ossian and Klopstock exercised upon the bards are in many cases so closely interwoven, that a discussion of Ossian’s influence upon the bards without a previous study of Klopstock would be impracticable.
Two streams of poesy, proceeding from Hagedorn and Haller, respectively, ran side by side in the middle of the 18th century, the former bearing upon its surface the light, fantastic, Frenchified, anacreontic poetry, the latter the more somber verse of Klopstock and his pupils—this latter in the strain of Young’s Night Thoughts.[51] The melancholy Ossian could be assured a cordial reception by a poet like Klopstock, at the bottom of whose really healthy nature there lurked something that had a little earlier responded to the elegiac mood of Young—feelings that had been intensified by the death of his dearly–beloved wife Meta (1758). This bereavement cast a deep shadow over Klopstock, so much so that for several years he wrote little poetry. Much of this time was spent in Germany—he had been living at Copenhagen since 1753—and it was undoubtedly upon one of these visits to his fatherland that he became acquainted with Ossian. Here was sustenance, indeed, for the sentimental side of his nature, for his Gefühlsschwärmerei. The dim forms of Ossian’s heroes, the misty atmosphere of the Highlands in which they lived, were well calculated to cast a spell over the author of the Messiah, whose own genius was not fitted to delineate his characters with sharp, clear–cut lines. There is a certain mistiness in Klopstock’s great epic that reminds one of the shadowy atmosphere in which the heroes of the Ossianic epics are enveloped. More than one passage in the Messiah conveys the impression of representing little more than rhetorical bombast. Macpherson was a kindred spirit.
This was, however, by no means all that Ossian held out to him. He saw something in Ossian that he seized upon even more eagerly—too eagerly, in fact—namely, he regarded Ossian as a German. By this time Klopstock’s activity in the patriotic field had begun; religion no longer engrossed his entire attention. Barring Frederick the Great, there were no glorious figures upon the political stage, and Frederick’s fondness for the literature of France was not calculated to attract Klopstock, who hated the rationalistic poetry of the French. Nor was the empire of the 18th century a political organism to inspire the poet to patriotic effusions. A united fatherland lay, however, in the dim and distant past, almost buried in oblivion, in the days of old, when Arminius and his mighty warriors defied the power of Rome itself. And thither Klopstock turned for inspiration. Tacitus was a good source for historical data and in the famous work of the old Roman historian mention was made of the shouting of a battle–song by the Germani, a baritus (written barditus in some of the manuscripts).[52] Hence the term “bard” was applied to those whose duty it was to incite the warriors to battle by means of songs, and the songs themselves were called by Klopstock Bardiete, a word he applied also to his last historical dramas.[53] Unfortunately these songs of the days of yore, for the existence of which Eginhard’s statement was cited as authority, were apparently lost:
Doch ach, verstummt in ewiger Nacht
Ist Bardiet und Skofliod, und verhallt
Euer Schall, Telyn, Triomb! Hochgesang,
Deinem sogar klagen wir nach.[54]
And now Ossian appeared upon the scene, the bard of bards, who sang of the deeds of days gone by. Here was a source of consolation, indeed. If Ossian had only sung the deeds of Arminius! Although Fingal was no hero to be despised, Klopstock laments:
Und in öden dunkeln Trümmern
Der alten Celtensprache,
Seufzen nur einige seiner leisen Laute.[55]
And this regret that only a few notes have been handed down he could not shake off. We meet with it again and again, not only in his odes, e. g., “Unsre Sprache,” but also in his letters, e. g., in an epistle to Denis, dated Copenhagen, Jan. 6, 1767, where he says: “Ich bitte Sie, mich nicht lange auf Ihre Uebersetzung des Ossian warten zu lassen. Ossian ist ein vortrefflicher Barde. Wenn wir doch auch von unsern Barden irgend in einem Kloster etwas fänden!”[56] And in another letter to the same, dated Bernstorff, Sept. 8, 1767, he writes: “Ossians Werke sind wahre Meisterstücke. Wenn wir einen solchen Barden fänden! Es wird mir ganz warm bey diesem Wunsche.”[57] And when Denis informs him of the discovery of the songs of the so–called Illyrian bards,[58] he can not conceal his delight, and writes from Bernstorff under date of July 22, 1768: “Sie haben mir durch Ihre Nachricht, dass noch illyrische Barden durch die Ueberlieferung existiren, eine solche Freude gemacht, dass ich ordentlich gewünscht hätte, dass mir Ihr Ossian weniger gefallen hätte, um Sie bitten zu können, ihn liegen zu lassen und diese Barden zu übersetzen.”[59] Though the Poems of Ossian could not, then, fully compensate for the German treasures that were lost, they offered a standard by which to judge the character of the songs of the old Germani, and threw light upon many old institutions. There was much false material in Macpherson’s various preliminary dissertations, which, unfortunately, was accepted as gospel truth, even by men who might have been credited with more critical acumen. And so when Klopstock was in search of dress and historical material for his Bardiete, what more natural than that in painting the character and customs of the followers of Arminius, he should borrow here and there from the picture of the ancient Celts as presented by Macpherson?[60] That Klopstock interested himself in the history and manners of the ancient Caledonians, we see from a passage in the letter to Denis, dated July 22, 1768, where he refers Denis to John Macpherson’s Critical Dissertations:[61] “Ich vermuthe, dass Sie einige Kleinigkeiten in Ihrer [Vorrede] zum Ossian ändern werden,” he writes, “wenn Sie Macpherson von den Alterthümern der Hochländer gelesen haben werden.”[62]
But what had Ossian to do with the old Germani? We shall let Klopstock answer in his own words: “Und nun eine kleine nicht üble Nachricht von meinen weidmännischen Lustwandlungen in den Wäldern unsrer alten Sprachen, nach gethaner Arbeit nämlich.—Makpherson, der Retter des Barden Ossian (Ossian war deutscher Abkunft, weil er ein Kaledonier war)[63] wird mir, und wie ich hoffe nun bald, die eisgrauen Melodien zu einigen lyrischen Stellen des grossen Dichters schicken. Mit Hülfe dieser Melodien denk’ ich das Sylbenmaass der Barden herauszubringen.”[64] An epigram in the same tone appeared in the Hamburgische Neue Zeitung, 1771, No. 183, and was reprinted in the first edition of the Gelehrtenrepublik, although omitted in the second. It was entitled “Gerechter Anspruch,” and ran as follows:
Sie, deren Enkel jetzt auf Schottlands Bergen wohnen,
Die von den Römern nicht provinzten Kaledonen,
Sind deutschen Stamms. Daher gehört auch uns mit an
Der Bard und Krieger Ossian,
Und mehr noch als den Engelländern an.
We see, therefore, that Ossian was unceremoniously annexed by Klopstock; Celts and Germani were all one to him,[65] he drew no narrow distinctions, and not until late in life were his ideas on this point clarified. We are not to suppose, however, that Klopstock alone occupied this position. Far from it. The conceptions that existed at the time as to the genetic relation of peoples and languages were rather hazy, to say the least. Klopstock’s intense patriotism was a factor in preventing him from penetrating more to the root of the matter. “Die allgemein anerkannte und empfundene Vortrefflichkeit dieser Gesänge war es,” says a writer in the periodical Bragur,[66] “welche ... die zärtliche Vaterlandsliebe einiger teutschen Worthies so weit entflammte, dass sie nicht nur den Barden Ossian, weil man bisher die Celten für die Stammväter der Teutschen hielt und die ältesten teutschen Dichter aus der Heidenzeit nicht anders als mit dem Bardennamen zu beschenken gewohnt war, zu einem Landsmanne von uns zu machen suchten, sondern ihn auch wirklich machten. Unsere Väter waren also Celten, unsere ältesten teutonischen Dichter Barden.”