Abstract
James Macpherson’s The Poems of Ossian was one of the most influential publications in the eighteenth century. The poems have influenced numerous writers, artists, politicians, and musicians, including well know figures such as Walt Whitman, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Thomas Jefferson, and Felix Mendelssohn, and the poems significantly impacted eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Romanticism and nationalism. Its impact on the arts in general has often been overlooked because of controversy surrounding the authenticity of the poems, which Macpherson claimed were Gaelic poems from the ancient Scottish bard Ossian. Much has been done in recent times to exonerate Macpherson of fraudulence, at least in part. This thesis reviews the history of the debate and summarizes the findings, but it moves past the debate and focuses on the influence of the poems on musicians.
Few music historians have taken note of the influence of The Poems of Ossian on music. Recently, a few scholars have begun the process of identifying pieces with connections to Ossian, while others have focused on the stylistic features of works by individual composers. This study builds on this material by making a compilation of these various lists and then compares representative pieces to see if an Ossianic manner exists. This study begins by considering the broader context of the reception of the poems, including an in-depth look at the text to identify its attraction to musicians. Then fifteen pieces by different composers are analyzed for common characteristics. Although these pieces possess a diversity of characteristics, they show consistency in their use of literary images and musical construction, which seem strongly correlated to the character of The Poems of Ossian. To facilitate future study, the author has compiled a list of stylistic features that allows for a flexible identification of music influenced by the Ossianic manner. The author concludes that the Ossian text and the music that responded to it have had a far-reaching impact on Romantic music in general.
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