Mistral, Frédéric

MISTRAL, FRÉDÉRIC. - Provençal poet, b. at Maillane on 8 Sept. 1830, d. there on 25 March 1914. A disciple and friend of Joseph Roumanille, the first of the nineteenth-century Provençal poets, he founded together with him in 1854 the Félibrige, which had as its official organ the Armana provençau. This literary school, which later became famous, set itself the goal of reviving, on artistic foundations, the Provençal language and the various dialects of Languedoc. The attempt later extended to the Catalan poets, called upon to fraternize with the félibres, in order to celebrate their common Romance traditions. M.'s enthusiasm for this union is found again in the hymn Chant de la coupe, of purely convivial and troubadour inspiration.

M.'s poetic career begins in Li Provençalo, the first anthology of the new Provençal lyric poets: the influence of Roumanille is preponderant. But it is with the poem Mirèio ("Mirella"), which appeared at Avignon in 1859, and was greeted with enthusiasm by Lamartine, that M. gave the full measure of his art, bound to rustic themes and to the legends of Provence: this land lives again in a delicate love story, rich in picturesque and rural episodes, which are interwoven in the manner of an epic. The work, which quickly became popular, was later set to music by Gounod (1864). M.'s subsequent poems (Calendau, 1867; Nerto, 1884; Lou pouèmo dôu rose, 1897) and his only theatrical attempt (La rèine Jana, 1890) manage to attain only in rare moments the simple emotion and the poetic height of Mirèio. When M. moves away from the sentimental candor and the religious abandonment with which the masterpiece of his youth is pervaded, he declines into literary artifice, made still more evident by a language "rediscovered."

But in the memories of childhood and youth, published in 1906 under the title Moun expelido, and in the happy collection of lyrics and short poems (Lis Iselo d'or, 1875; Lis oulivado, 1912) the pathetic impulse of the poet, often interwoven with traditional religious themes, reaches indisputable heights. Finally, to M. is owed the grandiose dictionary in Provence and Italy. Florence 1930; A. Farinelli, M., Rome 1930; A. Dagan, F. M., sa vie, son oeuvre. Avignon 1930; P. Devoluy, M. poète catholique. Les cantiques mistraliens. M. et les protestants, in Foi et vie, 1 (1930), pp. 911-21; A. Lamorte, Le christianisme de M., Montauban 1931; F. Neri, Saggi di lett. italiana, francese e inglese. Naples 1936, p. 145 ff.; D. Valeri, Saggi e note di lett. francese moderna. Florence 1941, p. 59 ff.; E. G. Leonard, M. ami de la science et des savantes. Paris 1947.

Giacinto Spagnoletti