A friend requested I pin some book suggestions earlier today, so I started a new Pinterest board for book recommendations. Generally I don't like to recommend a book unless I know you and know what sort of books you might like, but I've had more repins and likes on this board in the last hour than any other I've made pretty much ever. So here's the link if you care to check it out, though it's nothing new to anyone who knows me on Goodreads.
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
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