I began at once to make my imitations of Ossian, and I dare say they were not windier and mistier7 than the original. At the same time I read the literature of the subject, and gave the pretensions8 of Macpherson an unquestioning faith. I should have made very short work of any one who had impugned9 the authenticity10 of the poems, but happily there was no one who held the contrary opinion in that village, so far as I knew, or who cared for Ossian, or had even heard of him. This saved me a great deal of heated controversy11 with my contemporaries, but I had it out in many angry reveries with Dr. Johnson and others, who had dared to say in their time that the poems of Ossian were not genuine lays of the Gaelic bard4, handed down from father to son, and taken from the lips of old women in Highland12 huts, as Macpherson claimed.
In fact I lived over in my small way the epoch13 of the eighteenth century in which these curious frauds found polite acceptance all over Europe, and I think yet that they were really worthier14 of acceptance than most of the artificialities that then passed for poetry. There was a light of nature in them, and this must have been what pleased me, so long-shut up to the studio-work of Pope. But strangely enough I did not falter15 in my allegiance to him, or realize that here in this free form was a deliverance, if I liked, from the fetters16 and manacles which I had been at so much pains to fit myself with. Probably nothing would then have persuaded me to put them off permanently17, or to do more than lay them aside for the moment while I tried that new stop and that new step.
I think that even then I had an instinctive18 doubt whether formlessness was really better than formality. Something, it seems to me, may be contained and kept alive in formality, but in formlessness everything spills and wastes away. This is what I find the fatal defect of our American Ossian, Walt Whitman, whose way is where artistic19 madness lies. He had great moments, beautiful and noble thoughts, generous aspirations20, and a heart wide and warm enough for the whole race, but he had no bounds, no shape; he was as liberal as the casing air, but he was often as vague and intangible. I cannot say how long my passion for Ossian lasted, but not long, I fancy, for I cannot find any trace of it in the time following our removal from Ashtabula to the county seat at Jefferson. I kept on with Pope, I kept on with Cervantes, I kept on with Irving, but I suppose there was really not substance enough in Ossian to feed my passion, and it died of inanition.
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1 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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2 prodigiously | |
adv.异常地,惊人地,巨大地 | |
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3 bards | |
n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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4 bard | |
n.吟游诗人 | |
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5 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
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6 supplant | |
vt.排挤;取代 | |
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7 mistier | |
misty(多雾的,被雾笼罩的)的比较级形式 | |
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8 pretensions | |
自称( pretension的名词复数 ); 自命不凡; 要求; 权力 | |
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9 impugned | |
v.非难,指谪( impugn的过去式和过去分词 );对…有怀疑 | |
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10 authenticity | |
n.真实性 | |
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11 controversy | |
n.争论,辩论,争吵 | |
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12 highland | |
n.(pl.)高地,山地 | |
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13 epoch | |
n.(新)时代;历元 | |
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14 worthier | |
应得某事物( worthy的比较级 ); 值得做某事; 可尊敬的; 有(某人或事物)的典型特征 | |
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15 falter | |
vi.(嗓音)颤抖,结巴地说;犹豫;蹒跚 | |
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16 fetters | |
n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 );束缚v.给…上脚镣,束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17 permanently | |
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地 | |
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18 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
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19 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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20 aspirations | |
强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 ); 志向; 发送气音; 发 h 音 | |
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