Ossian by Werther; or, the 'respect for this author'

Abstract

Despite Goethe’s unfavourable affirmations concerning Ossian in his old age, he had set the fashion for Macpherson’s publications with The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). Even after the German ‘Ossianomanie’ had subsided, the Bard’s intoxicating influence on Werther kept arousing the interest of an international readership in other countries. This contribution will shed more light on Werther translations that partly omitted or expurgated the inserted Ossianic passages, thus ignoring their function as a factor of composition, obscuring the alterations in the protagonist’s character and distorting Goethe’s intended build-up of the sensual climax.