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Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

independent.co.uk

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Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#21

Post by bazoom42 »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #10
bigbillheck wrote: post #6

Usually the "I found and translated this old work" gimmick is presented within the text, not outside it. That aside, digital humanities work can be interesting, but I found a preprint of the actual paper ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.00142.pdf ) and their conclusion seems to be "Ossian is closer to these Irish works than it is to Homer". I'm not going to bother digging into their methods to see if they're plausible, b…

> Usually the "I found and translated this old work" gimmick is presented within the text, not outside it. This was such a common trope in 18th century fiction that I'm surprised anyone took it at face value.

It is similar to what folklorists like the Grimm brothers did, or the publisher of the Arabian Nights, Antoine Galland, so not necessarily suspect.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#22

Post by digging »

bazoom42 wrote: post #12

I’m fascinated by the Ossian affair. But I don’t get the premise of this article. The “social network” of characters in Ossian is closer to characters in Irish legends than to Homer? You would expect that even if it had been authentic ancient legends. I’m sure if you compare Volsung Saga to Nibelungenlied you will also get closer matching networks, since they are based on the same ancient body of legends.

Huh. Yeah, I thought there would be more substance. But this seems completely meaningless. Or perhaps even like it supports the ancient origin story.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#23

Post by digging »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #11

On a slightly different topic, I was reading about other greek epics beyond Homer, and I knew there were things like the Theban Cycle and a broader Trojan War cycle, and it turns out that some of them may have never existed, they almost certainly weren't any kind of "cycle", the ones that did exist weren't very good, and that they may never have been written down at all outside of summaries. https://kiwihellenist.blo…

> that they may never have been written down at all outside of summaries.

That is normal for preclassical literature. Even the works of Homer weren't standardized until several centuries after they were created.

> some of them may have never existed

Actually, this is not uncommon for anything ancient, too. I believe most scholars doubt the existence of, for example, Homer himself.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#24

Post by dhosek »

slibhb wrote: post #7

From wikipedia: > Johnson also dismissed the poems' quality. Upon being asked, "But Doctor Johnson, do you really believe that any man today could write such poetry?" he famously replied, "Yes. Many men. Many women. And many children."

Johnson was quite the man for the pithy quote.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#25

Post by infradig »

bazoom42 wrote: post #12

I’m fascinated by the Ossian affair. But I don’t get the premise of this article. The “social network” of characters in Ossian is closer to characters in Irish legends than to Homer? You would expect that even if it had been authentic ancient legends. I’m sure if you compare Volsung Saga to Nibelungenlied you will also get closer matching networks, since they are based on the same ancient body of legends.

They didn't compare Ossian to Homer. Read it again. They compared Ossian to Irish legends and then compared The Odyssey to The Illiad. Ossian was suspiciously close to the Irish where Odyssey and Iliad were quite different.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#26

Post by genman »

infradig wrote: post #25
bazoom42 wrote: post #12

I’m fascinated by the Ossian affair. But I don’t get the premise of this article. The “social network” of characters in Ossian is closer to characters in Irish legends than to Homer? You would expect that even if it had been authentic ancient legends. I’m sure if you compare Volsung Saga to Nibelungenlied you will also get closer matching networks, since they are based on the same ancient body of legends.

They didn't compare Ossian to Homer. Read it again. They compared Ossian to Irish legends and then compared The Odyssey to The Illiad. Ossian was suspiciously close to the Irish where Odyssey and Iliad were quite different.

While this would make some sense, you appear to be wrong:

We compare the connectivity structures underlying the societies described in the Ossianic narratives with those of ancient Greek and Irish sources. Despite attempts, from the outset, to position Ossian alongside the Homeric epics and to distance it from Irish sources, our results indicate significant network-structural differences between Macpherson’s text and those of Homer.

https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S02195259165...

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#28

Post by mordechai9000 »

digging wrote: post #23
empath-nirvana wrote: post #11

On a slightly different topic, I was reading about other greek epics beyond Homer, and I knew there were things like the Theban Cycle and a broader Trojan War cycle, and it turns out that some of them may have never existed, they almost certainly weren't any kind of "cycle", the ones that did exist weren't very good, and that they may never have been written down at all outside of summaries. https://kiwihellenist.blo…

> that they may never have been written down at all outside of summaries. That is normal for preclassical literature. Even the works of Homer weren't standardized until several centuries after they were created. > some of them may have never existed Actually, this is not uncommon for anything ancient, too. I believe most scholars doubt the existence of, for example, Homer himself.

Isn't there an old joke that says the works of Homer were actually written by another man of the same name? The joke being that Homer is somewhat apocryphal already.

Re: Ossian, the ‘Homer of the North’, the greatest literary hoax (2016)

#29

Post by billfruit »

slibhb wrote: post #7

From wikipedia: > Johnson also dismissed the poems' quality. Upon being asked, "But Doctor Johnson, do you really believe that any man today could write such poetry?" he famously replied, "Yes. Many men. Many women. And many children."

Well Jonson was disparaging towards 'Paradsise Lost' as well.
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