influence and vogue went on increasing for half a century. Among those
who shared in the Macpherson craze were Goethe and Napoleon Bonaparte.
In France, de Villemarqué published his "Chants populaires de la
Bretagne," a collection of poems from the Breton. In Scotland,
Macpherson had several imitators. In Wales, the new movement took
shape in the revival of the National Eisteddfod in 1819. In Ireland,
the first fruits of Macpherson's genius are found in Walker's
"Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards," published in 1786, and in
Charlotte Brooke's "Reliques of Irish Poetry," published in 1789. The
originals in this case were genuine, including a number of poems of
the kind called, since Macpherson's time, Ossianic.[1] The English
versions supplied by Miss Brooke were in close imitation of the style
and diction of Macpherson. The same influence extends to Hardiman's
"Irish Minstrelsy," published in 1831.
[Footnote 1: The Irish term for this class of poetry is
"Fianaidheacht," and is of great antiquity.]
The expansion of the new Celtic consciousness is exemplified in the
publication in 1804 of a tract in French on the Irish Alphabet by Jean
Jacques Marcel. The first important philological treatise on the
Celtic languages was published by the French philologist Pictet in
1837, dealing with "the affinity of the Celtic languages to Sanscrit."
Next year, 1838, appeared Bopp's work in German, showing the relation
of the Celtic languages to Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, German, etc.
The Celtic literary enthusiasm was henceforth supplemented by solid
scientific research.
In these particulars is presented, I think, a fairly accurate sketch
of the wholly modern development of the Celtic consciousness. I wish
to recall here the fact that from the earliest traceable traditions of
the Gaelic people down to the time of George Buchanan, there is not
found the slightest glimmer of recognition that the Celts of Ireland
were Celts, or that they were more nearly akin to the Celts of Britain
and the Continent than to any other population of white men. The
second fact which I wish particularly to emphasise is that throughout
all its history the term Celtic bears a linguistic and not a racial
significance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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