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 COLLEGEOF 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 modernProvençal renaissance was submitted in partial fulfilment of therequirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at ColumbiaUniversity. My interest in Mistral was first awakened by an article fromthe pen of the great Romance philologist, Gaston Paris, which appearedin the Revue de Paris in October, 1894. The idea of writing the bookcame to me during a visit to Provence in 1897. Two years later I visitedthe south of France again, and had the pleasure of seeing Mistral in hisown home. It is my pleasant duty to express here once again my gratitudefor his kindly hospitality and for his suggestions in regard to worksupon the history of the Félibrige. Not often does he who studies theworks of a poet in a foreign tongue enjoy as I did the privilege ofhearing the verse from the poet's own lips. It was an hour not to bePg viforgotten, and the beauty of the language has been for me since then asreal as that of music finely rendered, and the force of the poet'spersonality was impressed upon me as it scarcely could have been evenfrom a most sympathetic and searching perusal of his works. His greatinfluence in southern France and his great personal popularity are notdifficult to understand when one has seen the man.
As the striking fact in the works of this Frenchman is that they are notwritten in French, but in Provençal, a considerable portion of thepresent essay is devoted to the language itself. But it did not appearfitting that too much space should be devoted to the purely linguisticside of the subject. There is a field here for a great deal of specialstudy, and the results of such investigations will be embodied inspecial works by those who make philological studies their specialprovince. In the first division of the present work, however, along withthe life of the poet and the history of the Félibrige, a description ofthe language is given, which is an account at least of its distinctivefeatures. A short chapter will be found devoted to the subject of theversificaPg viition of the poets who write in the new speech. This subject isnot treated in Koschwitz's admirable grammar of the language.
The second division is devoted to the poems. The epics of Mistral, if wemay venture to use the term, are, with the exception of Lamartine'sJocelyn, the most remarkable long narrative poems that have beenproduced in France in modern times. At least one of them would appear tobe a work of the highest rank and destined to live. Among the shortpoems that constitute the volume called Lis Isclo d'Or are a number ofmasterpieces.
This book aims to pr