WorkJames Macpherson

The Works of Ossian

The Works of Ossian (1765; original Fragments of Ancient Poetry, 1760) Inferred

James Macpherson (1736–1796) · 1765; original Fragments of Ancient Poetry, 1760

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Documented 1846

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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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. Transcendentalist

V. New York

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

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New-York Daily Tribune

“Napoleon and his Marshals” · 1845

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“Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and could appreciate the beauty of tenderness”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p112

Inferred Fuller explicitly names "Ossian" in her discussion of Napoleon's reading tastes. This refers to the Ossianic poetry of James Macpherson, initially published as Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), Fingal (1762), and Temora (1763), and later collected as The Works of Ossian (1765). Napoleon's admiration for Ossian was historically well-known.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p180

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“I saw nothing more, except such apparitions as visited Ossian, on the hill-side, when he went out by night, and struck the bosky shield, and called to him the spirits of the heroes, and the white-armed maids, with their blue eyes of grief.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.