Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.10.2008, Page 185

KLASSÍK NORÐURSINS
ABSTRACT
The Classical North: the appropriation of Nordic hterature
in the construction of national heritage
This article documents and discusses the ways in which a new paradigm was
introduced into the budding nationalistic discourse on literature in Britain in
the latter part of the eighteenth century. The major event may have been the
controversial translation of Ossian’s poems which were disputed from day one on
several grounds, all of which can be subsumed under a tag of nationalistic desire;
Irish intellectuals protested that the contents of the poems were originally Irish,
Enghsh scholars such as Dr. Johnson considered them to be absolutely spurious.
The poems, genuine, spurious or something in between, did, however, usher in a
new wave of literary studies in a nationalistic vein, whereby the “classical origins”
of one’s own hterature was discovered, found, constructed, created. In a direct
reaction to James Macpherson’s translations, the bishop of Dromore, Thomas
Percy constructed a new antiquity for Enghsh hterature through his translation of
Eddic poems and a subsequent pubhcation of his Reliques ofAncient English Poetry.
Here one can see how Percy minutely constructs a Nordic heritage for his so-
called Minstrels who, in his opinion, retained a link to ancient Nordic poetry and
thus presented a classical continuum in Enghsh culture.
Keywords: Nation, national literature, nationalism, classical antiquity, classical
North
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