WorkJames Macpherson

The Poems of Ossian

The Poems of Ossian (1760-65) Inferred

James Macpherson (1736–1796) · 1760-65

InferredFuller invokes "Ossianic poetry" as a qualitative descriptor for the wind and sea at Nahant, presupposing her correspondent's familiarity with Macpherson's pseudo-Gaelic epic—a style characterized by wild, mournful, elemental language. The phrase "of which you hear so many strains" suggests the two had previously discussed Ossian.

ReadMentioned

Documented 1839

Letters

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist1record

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1839—

Letter to Jane F. Tuckerman

p76

read

“The first night we had a storm, and the wind roared and wailed round the house that Ossianic poetry of which you hear so many strains.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Fuller invokes "Ossianic poetry" as a qualitative descriptor for the wind and sea at Nahant, presupposing her correspondent's familiarity with Macpherson's pseudo-Gaelic epic—a style characterized by wild, mournful, elemental language. The phrase "of which you hear so many strains" suggests the two had previously discussed Ossian.