/lit/ - Literature

But what if we can bring back epic poetry but through albums instead of pure poetry?

Has this been done before?

>"The Poems of Ossian" by James Macpherson were published in the 1760's, (see below) and created a sensation. Over the next thirty years it was translated into many languages, and gave a tremendous impetus to both the nascent romantic movement, and the study of folklore and Celtic languages. Goethe translated parts into German; Napoleon brought a copy to Moscow and also commissioned Ingres to paint The Dream of Ossian; Scandinavian and German princes were named Oscar after the character in it, as was Oscar Wilde; indeed the popularity of this name is due entirely to Macpherson. The city of Selma in Alabama, USA, is named after the palace of Fingal. Writers as diverse as William Blake, Henry Thoreau, George Byron, Walter Scott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Matthew Arnold praised or imitated it. Its influence or lack of it on James Fenimore Cooper has been the subject of lively debate. Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms composed pieces inspired by it. But it is little known today (though it has been recently reprinted -- see below)

>The poems achieved international success. Napoleon and Diderot were great admirers, and Voltaire wrote parodies of them.[6] Thomas Jefferson thought Ossian "the greatest poet that has ever existed",[7] and planned to learn Gaelic so as to read his poems in the original.[8] They were proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical writers such as Homer. Many writers were influenced by the works, including Walter Scott, and painters and composers chose Ossianic subjects. One poem was translated into French in 1762, and by 1777 the whole corpus.[9] In the German-speaking states Michael Denis made the first full translation in 1768–69, inspiring the proto-nationalist poets Klopstock and Goethe, whose own German translation of a portion of Macpherson's work figures prominently in a climactic scene of The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).[10][11] Goethe's associate Johann Gottfried Herder wrote an essay titled Extract from a correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples (1773) in the early days of the Sturm und Drang movement.

Why aren't you reading the greatest epic of Celtic poetry?

http://www.exclassics.com/ossian/ossintro.htm

>Napoleon soon parted ways with Rousseau, but his admiration for Ossian continued throughout his life. He even reads Ossian in Napoleon in America. Ossian’s cycle of epic poems was published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson beginning in 1760. Though Macpherson claimed the material originated from ancient Gaelic sources, many – including Samuel Johnson – criticized the work as a forgery, written by Macpherson himself.

>When Napoleon learned, on St. Helena, that the wife of British Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm hailed from Scotland, he asked her if she knew Ossian’s poems.

> [Napoleon] said he admired them very much, particularly Darthula, and inquired if the controversy about their authenticity was decided; and whether Macpherson had really written them. He laughed on her replying with quickness, that Macpherson was not capable of writing them. She said the Highland Society had done everything possible to investigate and had proved their authenticity beyond a doubt…. She said [the poems] had been more admired on the Continent than in England. He exclaimed with energy: ‘It was I, – I made them the fashion. I have been even accused of having my head filled with Ossian’s clouds.’ (3)

What do you guys think of James Macpherson's Ossian?