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Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914) |
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French poet and Provençal patriot, who shared with the Spanish dramatist José Echegaray the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. Frédéric Mistral received the prize for his contributions in literature and philology. Calling himself 'humble écolier du grand Homère', a humble student of Homer – Mistral composed passionate odes to sun, to his native Provençe, and its people. His work had much in common with the mediaeval troubadour poetry, but the literary language of the troubadours should not be confused with Modern Provençal. "Thus my yearliest childhood was spent on the farm in the company of plowmen, harvesters, and shepherds. And sometimes, when some bourgeois happened by the farm, one of those who affected to speak only French, I was abashed and even humiliated to see my parents suddenly became respectful toward him, as if he was superior to them." (The Memoirs of Fréderick Mistral, translated by George Wickes, New Directions Pub. Corp., 1986, p. 17) Frédéric Mistral was born in Maillaine, a village in the Rhone
Valley of southern France. The family had lived on their own land from
one generation to the next. Mistral's father, a prosperous farmer and a
former soldier in the French Revolution, was left widower by his first
wife. At the age of fifty-five he married Estève Poulinet, the daughter
of the mayor; Frédéric was their only son, born on the 8th of
September 1830. "And, in spite of our neighbours treating us as
frog-eaters, we Maillanais always agree there is not a prettier country
under the sun than ours," Mistral wrote in his book of
memoirs. (Memoirs of Mistral, translated by Constance Elisabeth Maud, 1907, p. 13) In his early years Mistral developed a passionate attachment
to the language of his region, Provençal, known also as langue d'oc,
in contrast to langue d'oïl of the north. He was educated at
the College Royal of Avignon, where he read Homer and Virgil. While still at school Mistral started to write verse in Provençal, his mother tongue. Already at that time, Mistral's great ambition was to become a poet, but his father wanted him to finish his studies. Deeply affected by the Revolution of 1848, he published a song in French that was published in the little newspapers of Arles and Avignon: "Awake, you children of Gironde, / Stir and quicken in your cold tombs; / Freedom will rejuvenate the world—/ Eternal war against kings!" After receiving his law degree in 1851 from the University of Aix-en-Provence, Mistral started his literary career. Mistral wrote his early works in France. His poems attracted
attention when they were published in Li Provençalo
(1852), an
anthology edited by his former teacher Joseph Roumanille (1818-1891).
On May 21, in 1854 he founded in the castle of Font-Ségugne, near
Châteauneuf-de-Gadagne, with a group of Avignon poets an association,
the Félibrige,
for the maintenance of language and customs of Provençe. The
group started to publish an annual journal, L'Armana Prouvençau.
His motto to the Association of Provençal Poets was: "Lou soulèu me fai
canta" (The sun makes me sing). The founding members called themselves Félibres, "nobody knows to this day exactly why." The ('Preface to the English Edition' by Harriet Waters Preston, in Mireio. A Provencal Poem, 1890, p. 9) The
Provençal word means pupil or follower. According to Mistral, he had
read it in a prayer to the Virgin Mary, which spoke of "the seven Félibres of the law." (The Literature of Provence: An Introduction by Daniel Vitaglione, 2000, p. 22) Mistral was the most celebrated "félibre;" other founding members of the association included Joseph Roumanille, a poet and publisher, Jean Brunet, a poet and committed socialist, Théodore Aubanel, a poet from a family of successful printers, a good friend of Alphonse Daudet, Paul Giéra, a notary public by trade who also wrote poetry, Anselme Mathieu, from a family of vineyard owners, who published poems under the pseudonym of Félibre di Poutoun, and Alphonse Tavan, a poet. Mistral's pastoral epic Mirèio (1859) was a major contribution to this rising Provençal cultural and literary movement. The work, which was first issued by a bookseller at Avignon, greatly helped to raise awareness among the general audience. Mistal had shown the manuscript to the poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), whose enthusiasms paved way for its success. Michel Carré based his libretto for Charles Gounod's opera, Mireille (1865), on the poem. The first English translation of Mirèio was published in May 1867. The central characters in this long poem in 12 cantos are young lovers, Mirèio, a girl from an old and prosperous peasant family, and Vincèn, a young boy without any property. Mirèio's parents do not approve their marriage, and rival suitors are making Vincèn's life miserable. Finally Mirèio escapes to search help from Provençal patron saints. She gets a sunstroke while crossing a barren country (la Crau). Just before her death, she sees in the chapel of the pilgrimage site a heavenly boat with the saints coming to take her with them. After
his breakthrough as a poet, Mistral returned from Paris
to Maillane. While in Avignon, he befriended Stéphane
Mallarmé,
who taught English there, and despite their differences started to
correspond
with him. Mallarmé tried to get his increasingly parochial colleague to
join him in founding an international society of poets which would have
included both the Félibrige and the Spanish poets. To his surprise,
Mistral's response was unenthusiastic: "The Provençal poets," Mistral
said,
"are the natural friends of poets of Paris, England, Spain and Germany,
indeed all those poets who've been willing to come to Avignon and
shake hands with us. For that to happen there's no need of written or
sworn obligations: sympathy is the best of constitutions." (Mallarmé: The Poet and His Circle by Rosemary Lloyd, 1999, p. 105) An
admirer-with-reservations of Mistral's work, Mallarmé said once to
the physician and symbolist poet Henri Cazalis: "Recently I
read a poem by Mistral which I hadn't read earlier but which struck me
as really weak." (Selected Letters of Stéphane Mallarmé, edited and translated by Rosemary Lloyd, 1988, p. 76) Mistral lived in Maillane until his death, first with his mother, then with his wife, Mile Marie Rivière, whom he married in 1876. Mistral devoted 20 years' work to the scholarly dictionary of Provençial, entitled Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige (The Treasury of Félibres). This work, in which Mistral attempted to create a new literary standard for the language, was issued between 1880 and 1886. The dictionary contains all the dialects of the language and a wealth of Provençal folklore, traditions, and beliefs. There is also a translation of Genesis into Provençal prose. "The rhythm of this poem has beauty and harmony, and its artistic composition succeeds on all counts. The source from which Mistral has drawn is not psychology; it is nature. Man himself is treated purely as a child of nature. Let other poets sound the depths of the human soul!" (C. D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, in his Nobel Prize presentation 1904, Nobel Lectures: Literature 1901-1967, edited by Horst Frenz, World Scientific, 1999, p. 25) Mistral's third poem was about the last days of the popes in
Avignon, Nerto –
the work received the Prix Vitet. His
admires compared him to Ariosto and organized banquets and festives in
his honor in Paris. According to a story, William F. ("Buffalo Bill")
Cody, with several of his Native American performers, visited him in
Maillane when his Wild West Show was touring Europe. Mistral's mustache was similar in style to Buffalo Bill's. Aside from journeys to Paris, and a trip to Switzerland and another to Italy, Mistral rarely left his beloved region. La Réino Jano, Mistral's only drama, was published in 1890. His last great epic was Lou Pouèmo dou Rose (1897). It depicted the life of the Rhône boatmen before the advent of the steamship. Among Mistral's other works are his memoirs Moun
espelido: memòri e raconte (1906) and Lis óulivado (1912),
a collection of short lyric poems. Mistral died at Maillane on March
24, 1914. Posthumously appeared three volumes of Prose
d'almanach
(1926-30). It's French translation opposite the
Provençal text was made by Mistral; usually the French translations
accompanying his original works were by the author himself. The
proceeds of the Nobel prize Mistral used to develop his museum of
ethnography which he had founded in Arles. He inaugurated a celebration
of the city's traditional clothing, and insisted that the participating
young girls abandon contemporary fashion altogether and wear the
Arlesian dress and ornate head covering for the rest of their lives.
"Mistral in
a sense not only created a museum to commemorate the traditions of
Provence, but he also sought to transform Provence itself into a
museum." (Cock & Bull Stories: Folco de Baroncelli and the Invention of the Camargue by Robert Zaretsky, 2004, p. 98) For further reading: Histoire du Félibrige, 1854-1896 by G. Jourdanne (1897); Frédéric Mistral: Poet and Leader in Provence by Charles Alfred Downer (1901); Le sagesse de Mistral by C. Maurras (1931); Mistral by R. Lyle (1953); Mistral, Mage de l'Occident by M. Decremps (1954); Mistral ou l'Illusion by R. Lafont (1954); Introduction to Mistral by R. Aldington (1956); The Lion of Arles by T. Edwards (1964); Grandeur de Mistral essai de critique littéraire by L. Bayle (1964); Lamartine et Mistral by B. Galvada (1970); Modern Provecal Phologoly and Morphology, Studies in the Language of Frederic Mistral by Harry E. Ford (1975); The Memoirs of Frédéric Mistral, translated by George Wickes (1986); Mistral: poète de l'amour by Mitu Grosu (1995); The Literature of Provence: An Introduction by Daniel Vitaglione (2000); Frédéric Mistral: l'enfant, la mort et les rêves by Jean-Yves Casanova (2004); L'alchimie spirituelle dans l'œuvre de Frédéric Mistal by Jean-Paul Marsal (2015); Frédéric Mistral, l'ombre et l'écho: aspects de l'œuvre littéraire mistralienne by Jean-Yves Casanova (2016) . Note: Alphonse Daudet met Mistral in 1860 and depicted in Lettres de mon moulin (1869) his visit at Mistral's home in Maillane. In Finnish: Saima Harmaja on kääntänyt Mirèiosta muutaman katkelman teokseen Ranskan kirjallisuuden kultainen kirja, toim. Anna-Maria Tallgren (1934): "Kai tähtösen mä löydän, jolla rakastaa / vapaasti kaksi lasta saisi. / Mi so? - Kuin urut humajaisi -" / Ja niinkuin uneen uinahtaisi / pään käänsi syvään huoaten hän pois ja maa jäi taa. Selected works:
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