It is conventional to begin modern discussions of the life and work of James MacPherson, creator of the Ossian poems, with a rhetoric of rescue. MacPherson was once famous; he has now lapsed, and when we turn to him we must first raise him up from oblivion. In spite of the ironies of frequently claiming that no one speaks of your subject, there is no question that, from the perspective of literary history, James MacPherson does need rescuing. It is equally true that quite possibly he would not have cared about the lapse of his literary reputation. He died a famous and influential man, and, during much of his life, his primary activities and interests were not literary. He was a Highland squire, member of parliament, historian, and what I think we would now call international businessman or statesman (agent for the Nabob of Arcot). Born in undistinguished circumstances in the most isolated and materially backward part of Britain, MacPherson found fame and fortune, and eventually returned to his birthplace as landlord, a pale version of the vanished clan chief. In many ways, his life, as far as value might be attached to it now, does not stand or fall by literary criteria.

The basic challenge for a discussion of the Ossian poems, the primary literary work of James MacPherson, is that it must in all honesty begin with this sort of disclaimer. For MacPherson, literature – poetry – was in the plainest of ways a vehicle for his ambition, and while he rode it with extraordinary success, its place in the story of his life is relentlessly practical.