Ossian (redirected from Ossianic)

Ossian (ŏsh`ən) or Oisin (əshēn`), legendary Gaelic poet, supposedly the son of Finn mac Cumhail, hero of a cycle of tales and poems that place his deeds of valor in the 3d cent. A.D. These traditional tales were preserved in Ireland and in the Scottish Highlands, with Ossian as the bard who sang of the exploits of Finn and his Fenian cohorts. A later cycle of Ossianic poetry centered on Cuchulain, another traditional hero. Ossian is generally represented as an old, blind man who had outlived both his father and his son. The name is remembered by most people in connection with James Macpherson, who published translations of two poems that he said had been written by Ossian; scholars subsequently proved that they were actually a combination of traditional Gaelic poems and original verses by Macpherson himself.

Bibliography

See J. Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian (1805, repr. 1974).

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Ossian

 Gaelic Oisín

Irish warrior-poet of the Fenian cycle of hero tales. The name Ossian became known throughout Europe in 1762–63 when the Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736–96) published the epics Fingal and Temora, which he represented as translations of works by the 3rd-century Gaelic poet Ossian. The poems were widely acclaimed and influential in the Romantic movement, but their authorship was later doubted, notably by Samuel Johnson (1775), and they were eventually determined to have been written largely by Macpherson.

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Ossian

a legendary Irish hero and bard of the 3rd century ad

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Ossian

a legendary, wandering Irish bard. [Irish Lit.: Harvey, 603]

See : Wandering

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Ossian

(also Oisin), a legendary warrior and bard of the Celts, who, according to tradition, lived in Ireland in the third century and sang of the deeds of his father, Finn (Fingal) mac Cumhall and his war band, the Fena (Fianna).

Legends about Ossian, Finn, and the Fena had existed in oral tradition for centuries in Scotland and especially in Ireland; some of these were written down no later than the 12th century. J. Macpherson ascribed to himself the honor of “discovering” the poetry of Ossian; in 1765 he published The Works of Ossian, the Son of Fingal. Research by scholars in Celtic studies in the 19th and 20th centuries have established that these Works, with the exception of a few fragments of Gaelic folklore, constitute a literary forgery.

REFERENCES

See references under MACPHERSON, JAMES.