James Macpherson
born October 27, 1736, Ruthven, Inverness,
Scotland
died February 17, 1796, Belville, Inverness
Scottish poet whose initiation of the
Ossianic controversy has obscured his genuine
contributions to Gaelic studies.
Macpherson’s first book of poems, The Highlander
(1758), was undistinguished; but after
collecting Gaelic manuscripts and having orally
transmitted Gaelic poems transcribed with the
encouragement of the poet John Home and the
financial support of the rhetorician Hugh Blair,
he published Fragments of Ancient
Poetry…Translated from the Gallic or Erse
Language (1760), Fingal (1762), and Temora
(1763), claiming that much of their content was
based on a 3rd-century Gaelic poet, Ossian. No
Gaelic manuscripts date back beyond the 10th
century. The authenticity of Ossian was
supported by Blair, looked on with skepticism by
the Scottish philosopher David Hume, admired
with doubt by the English poet Thomas Gray, and
denied by the panjandrum of English letters,
Samuel Johnson. None of the critics knew Gaelic.
Macpherson often injected a good deal of
Romantic mood into the originals, sometimes
closely followed them, and other times did not.
His language was strongly influenced by the
Authorized Version of the Bible. The originals
were published only after Macpherson’s death.
