Frédéric Mistral

Frédéric Mistral (September 8, 1830 - March 25, 1914) was a French poet who led the 19th century revival of Occitan (Provençal) language and literature. He was a key figure in the literary félibrige movement. He shared the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904 (with Jose Echegaray y Eizaguirre) for his contributions in literature and philology.

Life

Frédéric Mistral was born in Maillane, in the Bouches-du-Rhône département of France. Mistral's father was a well-to-do farmer in the former French province of Provence. Mistral attended the Royal College of Avignon (later renamed the Frédéric Mistral School). One of his teachers was Joseph Roumanille, who had begun writing poems in the vernacular of Provence and who became his lifelong friend. Mistral took a degree in law at the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1851.

Related Topics:
Maillane - Bouches-du-Rhône - Département - French province - Provence - Avignon - Joseph Roumanille - University of Aix-en-Provence - 1851

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Wealthy enough to live without following a profession, he early decided to devote himself to the rehabilitation of Provencal life and language. In 1854, with several friends, he founded the félibrige, an association for the maintenance of the Provencal language and customs, extended later to include the whole of southern France (le pays de la langue d'oc, "the country of the language of oc"). As the language of the troubadours, Provençal had been the cultured speech of southern France and was used also by poets in Italy and Spain. Mistral threw himself into the literary revival of Provençal and was the guiding spirit and chief organizer of the félibrige until his death in 1914.

Related Topics:
1854 - Langue d'oc - Troubadour - Italy - Spain

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Mistral devoted 20 years' work to a scholarly dictionary of Provençal, entitled Lou Tresor dou Felibrige, 2 vol. (1878). He also founded a Provencal ethnographic museum in Arles, using his Nobel Prize money to assist it. His attempts to restore the Provençal language to its ancient position did not succeed, but his poetic genius gave it some enduring masterpieces, and he is considered one of the greatest poets of France.

Related Topics:
Lou Tresor dou Felibrige - 1878 - Arles

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Mistral died in Maillane on the 25th of March, 1914.

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