Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:05:17.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Allure of the Improbable: Fingal, Evidence, and the Testimony of the “Echoing Heath”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Matthew Wickman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While James Macpherson's epic translation Fingal has usually been marshaled as evidence or impugned for its lack thereof, it actually bears a reflexive and critical relation to the issue of evidence in eighteenth-century British culture. On the one hand, the text elicits the ubiquitous logic of probability that was coming to shape the epistemology of legal evidence as well as parallel formations in commercial society and even in theories of the novel; on the other hand, however, the text counteracts this logic by highlighting its own affiliation with the improbability of witness testimony. Such testimony—improbable because widely differentiated from the deliberations of jurors, for example—increasingly came to reflect the relation of literature to the legal, scientific, and philosophical discourses of knowledge. Fingal shows how the improbability of the Scottish Highlands began symbolically to enable configurations of literary form as a vehicle of social critique.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 115 , Issue 2 , March 2000 , pp. 181 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor W Notes to Literature. Ed. Tiedemann, Rolf. Trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Vol. 1. New York: Columbia UP, 1991. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Arnot, Hugo A Collection and Abridgement of Celebrated Criminal Trials in Scotland, from A.D. 1536, to 1784. Edinburgh, 1785.Google Scholar
Barrell, John English Literature in History, 1730-80: An Equal, Wide Survey. London: Hutchinson, 1983.Google Scholar
Beattie, J. M Crime and the Courts in England, 1600-1800. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Bender, John “Enlightenment Fiction and the Scientific Hypothesis.” Representations 61 (1998): 6–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, John Imagining the Penitentiary: Fiction and the Architecture of Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.Google Scholar
Blair, Hugh “A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal.” Macpherson, Poems 343–408.Google Scholar
Blumenberg, Hans “Light as a Metaphor for Truth: At the Preliminary Stage of Philosophical Concept Foundation.” Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Ed. Levin, David Michael. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. 30–62.Google Scholar
Boswell, James Life of Johnson. 1791. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Clyde, Robert From Rebel to Hero: The Image of the Highlander, 1745-1830. East Lothian: Tuckwell, 1995.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Lectures 1808–1819 on Literature. Ed. Foakes, R. A. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. 2 vols. Vol. 5 of Collected Works.Google Scholar
Crawford, Robert Introduction. Crawford, Scottish Invention 1–21.Google Scholar
Crawford, Robert, ed The Scottish Invention of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Davis, Leith “‘Origins of the Specious’: James Macpherson's Ossian and the Forging of the British Empire.” The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 34 (1993): 132–13.Google Scholar
Davis, Lennard J Factual Fictions: The Origins of the English Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Devine, T. M “Landlordism and Highland Emigration.” Scottish Emigration and Scottish Society. Ed. Devine. Edinburgh: Donald, 1992. 84–103.Google Scholar
Dosanjh, Rajit S “The ‘Eloquence of the Bar’: Hugh Blair's Lectures, Professionalism and Scottish Legal Education.” Crawford, Scottish Invention 55–67.Google Scholar
Duncan, Ian “Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson and the Institutions of English.” Crawford, Scottish Invention 37–54.Google Scholar
Dwyer, John “The Melancholy Savage: Text and Context in the Poems of Ossian.” Ossian Revisited. Ed. Gaskill, Howard. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1991. 164–206.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, J. W Ehrlich's Blackstone. San Carlos: Nourse, 1959.Google Scholar
Fielding, Henry The History of Tom Jones. 1749. New York: Penguin, 1989.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Geoffrey The Law of Evidence. Dublin. 1754. London, 1756.Google Scholar
Greig, J. Y. T., ed The Letters of David Hume. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1932. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Guillory, John Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Berger, Thomas. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference. London: Cambridge UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Haney, David P “Aesthetics and Ethics in Gadamer, Levinas, and Romanticism: Problems of Phronesis and Techne.” PMLA 114 (1999): 32–45.Google Scholar
Houston, R. A Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Northern England, 1600-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Hume, David Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland respecting Crimes. 1844. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: Law Soc. of Scotland, 1986. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Innes, Thomas A Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Britain, or Scotland. London, 1729.Google Scholar
Iser, Wolfgang The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. 1775. Ed. Peter Levi. London: Penguin, 1984.Google Scholar
Langbein, John H “The Criminal Trial before the Lawyers.” University of Chicago Law Review 45 (1978): 263–316.Google Scholar
Langbein, John H “Historical Foundations of the Law of Evidence: A View from the Ryder Sources.” Columbia Law Review 96 (1996): 1168-1202.Google Scholar
Lenman, Bruce Integration, Enlightenment, and Industrialization: Scotland, 1746-1832. London: Arnold, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lukács, Georg The Historical Novel. Trans. Mitchell, Hannah and Mitchell, Stanley. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1962.Google Scholar
Macinnes, A. I “Scottish Gaeldom: The First Phase of Clearance.” People and Society in Scotland. Ed. Devine, T. M. and Mitchison, Rosalind. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: Donald, 1988. 70-90. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Mackay, David N., ed The Trial of James Stewart (The Appin Murder). London: Sweet, 1907.Google Scholar
Macpherson, James “A Dissertation concerning the Aera of Ossian.” 1773. The Poems of Ossian. Boston, 1851. 44–56.Google Scholar
Macpherson, James The Poems of Ossian and Related Works. Ed. Gaskill, Howard. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makdisi, Saree “Colonial Space and the Colonization of Time in Scott's Waverley.” Studies in Romanticism 34 (1995): 155–15.Google Scholar
Meek, Donald E “The Gaelic Ballads of Scotland: Creativity and Adaptation.” Ossian Revisited. Ed. Gaskill, Howard. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1991. 19–48.Google Scholar
Mitnick, John M “From Neighbor Witness to Judge of Proofs: The Transformation of the English Civil Juror.” American Journal of Legal History 32 (1988): 201–20.Google Scholar
Morano, Anthony A “A Reexamination of the Reasonable Doubt Rule.” Boston University Law Review 55 (1975): 507–50.Google Scholar
Moretti, Franco Atlas of the European Novel, 1800-1900. London: Verso, 1998.Google Scholar
Nelson, William The Law of Evidence. Savoy, 1717.Google Scholar
Newsom, Robert A Likely Story: Probability and Play in Fiction. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Patey, Douglas Lane Probability and Literary Form: Philosophic Theory and Literary Practice in the Augustan Age. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Pittock, Murray G. H The Invention of Scotland: The Stuart Myth and the Scottish Identity, 1638 to the Present. London: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Potkay, Adam The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, Eric A History of the Highland Clearances: Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions, 1746-1886. Vol. 1. London: Croom, 1982. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Scott, Walter Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since. 1814. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Sellar, W. David H “A Historical Perspective.” The Scottish Legal Tradition. Ed. Michael, C. Meston and Sellar. Edinburgh: Saltire Soc.; Stair Soc., 1991. 29–57.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Barbara J “Beyond Reasonable Doubt” and “Probable Cause ”: Historical Perspectives on the Anglo-American Law of Evidence. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.Google Scholar
Sher, Richard B Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Stafford, Fiona J The Sublime Savage: A Study of James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Stanhope, George The Duty of Witnesses. London, 1701.Google Scholar
A Summary of the Crown-Law, by Way of Abridgment of Serjeant Hawkins's Pleas of the Crown. Savoy, 1728.Google Scholar
Toynbee, Paget, and Whitley, Leonard, eds Correspondence of Thomas Gray. Oxford: Clarendon, 1935.Google Scholar
“Trial of James Stewart.” A Complete Collection of State Trials, and Proceedings for High-Treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors. 4th ed. Vol. 10. London, 1779. 39-138. 11 vols. 1776–17.Google Scholar
Trumpener, Katie Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Twining, William Rethinking Evidence: Exploratory Essays. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
Walker, David M A Legal History of Scotland. Vol. 5. Edinburgh: Green, 1988. 5 vols.Google Scholar
Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley: U of California P, 1957.Google Scholar
Welsh, Alexander Strong Representations: Narrative and Circumstantial Evidence in England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Wigmore, John Henry The Principles of Judicial Proof. Boston: Little, 1913.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Womack, Peter Improvement and Romance: Constructing the Myth of the Highlands. London: Macmillan, 1989.Google Scholar
Youngson, A. J After the Forty-Five. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1973.Google Scholar