James Macpherson, Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland

Dafydd Moore (University of Plymouth)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of York), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1760

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

Published anonymously by the respected Edinburgh house of Hamilton and Balfour in June of 1760, the 15 short poems or fragments of poems that made up the

Fragments

were presented as translations from Gaelic heroic verse. A second edition followed in September, lightly revised and with an additional poem inserted at XIII. They were the responsibility of James Macpherson, a 25 year old, classically educated school master from the Highlands of Scotland, aided and abetted by the

literati

of Edinburgh, one of whose number, Hugh Blair, provided an anonymous preface. Although they were presented as literal translations of extant ballads, only 2 (numbers VI and XIV) have been traced to existing poems, and while it is not altogether impossible that sources for others have been lost, the…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

992 words

Citation: Moore, Dafydd. "Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9045, accessed 21 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

James Macpherson, Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback