Mistral, Frédéric

(1830-1914)

   Provençal writer, Nobel laureate

   A poet and Nobel laureate, Frédéric Mistral was born in Maillane, Bouches-du-Rhône. in his youth he became the friend of joseph roumanille, and together they vowed to revive the occitan language, or langue d'oc. In 1851, Mistral began an epic in 12 sections, Mireille ("Mirèio," published in 1859) that evokes the suppressed sentiments and romantic fatalism of provence. One of seven founders (1854) of the Félibrige, a society dedicated to the revival of occitan and the Provençal culture, Mistral was an active contributor to l'Almanach provençal. in 1866, he began a second rustic epic, Calendal ("Calendau"), an allegorical celebration in which the marvels and picturesque wonders of Provence are described. At the same time, Mistral tried to extend the Félibrige from Provence to Catalonia, forming a Latin union. By 1876, a larger, more organized organization was achieved. His richly phrased lyric collection, Les Îles d'or ("Lis Isclo d'or," 1875) was followed by a lexicon filled with the various modern occitan dialects, the Trésor du félibrige ("Tresor dou felibrige", 1878-86). Enjoying considerable popularity that coincided with the expansion of the Félibrige, related to his friendship with charles maurras and his sympathy for the Right, Mistral felt the temptation of regionalism, but refused to become a polemicist and, after Nerte ("Nerto," 1884), an "Avignonnais poem," inspired by a medieval legend, and after an historical drama, La Reine Jeanne ("La Rèino Jano," 1890), he preferred to present, with Le Poème du Rhône ("Lou Pouèmo dou Rose," 1897), and a collection, Les Oli-vades ("Lis Oulivadou," 1912), an allegorical tableau of a Provence that had to change, but without relinquishing legends and traditions. Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904.