Frédéric Mistral

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Title: Frédéric Mistral
Poet and Leader in Provence
Author: Charles Alfred Downer
Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17293]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MISTRAL ***
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[Illustration: FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL]
Columbia University
STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURE
FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL
POET AND LEADER IN PROVENCE
BY

CHARLES ALFRED DOWNER
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW
YORK
NEW YORK
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY, AGENTS
66 FIFTH AVENUE

1901
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood
Mass. U.S.A.
PREFACE
This study of the poetry and life-work of the leader of the modern
Provençal renaissance was submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Columbia
University. My interest in Mistral was first awakened by an article from
the pen of the great Romance philologist, Gaston Paris, which appeared
in the Revue de Paris in October, 1894. The idea of writing the book
came to me during a visit to Provence in 1897. Two years later I visited
the south of France again, and had the pleasure of seeing Mistral in his
own home. It is my pleasant duty to express here once again my
gratitude for his kindly hospitality and for his suggestions in regard to
works upon the history of the Félibrige. Not often does he who studies
the works of a poet in a foreign tongue enjoy as I did the privilege of
hearing the verse from the poet's own lips. It was an hour not to be
forgotten, and the beauty of the language has been for me since then as
real as that of music finely rendered, and the force of the poet's
personality was impressed upon me as it scarcely could have been even
from a most sympathetic and searching perusal of his works. His great
influence in southern France and his great personal popularity are not

difficult to understand when one has seen the man.
As the striking fact in the works of this Frenchman is that they are not
written in French, but in Provençal, a considerable portion of the
present essay is devoted to the language itself. But it did not appear
fitting that too much space should be devoted to the purely linguistic
side of the subject. There is a field here for a great deal of special study,
and the results of such investigations will be embodied in special works
by those who make philological studies their special province. In the
first division of the present work, however, along with the life of the
poet and the history of the Félibrige, a description of the language is
given, which is an account at least of its distinctive features. A short
chapter will be found devoted to the subject of the versification of the
poets who write in the new speech. This subject is not treated in
Koschwitz's admirable grammar of the language.
The second division is devoted to the poems. The epics of Mistral, if
we may venture to use the term, are, with the exception of Lamartine's
Jocelyn, the most remarkable long narrative poems that have been
produced in France in modern times. At least one of them would appear
to be a work of the highest rank and destined to live. Among the short
poems that constitute the volume called Lis Isclo d'Or are a number of
masterpieces.
This book aims to present all the essential facts in the history of this
astonishing revival of a language, and to bring out the chief aspects of
Mistral's life-work. In our conclusions we have not yielded to the
temptation to prophesy. The conflicting tendencies of cosmopolitanism
and nationalism abroad in the world to-day give rise to fascinating
speculations as to the future. In the Felibrean movement we have a very
interesting problem of this kind, and no one can terminate a study of
the subject without asking himself the question, "What is going to come
out of it all?" No one can tell, and so we have not ventured beyond the
attempt to present the case as it actually exists.
Let me here also offer an expression of gratitude to Professor Adolphe
Cohn and to Professor Henry A. Todd of Columbia University for