Frederic Mistral Biography and List of Works

French poet who shared with José Echegaray the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904 for his contributions in literature and philology. Mistral called himself 'humble écolier du grand Homère', a humble student of Homer - his passionate odes to sun, to his native Provençe, and its people, had much in common with the medieval troubadour poetry.

Mistral was born in Maillaine, a village in the Rhone Valley of southern France, as the only son of a prosperous farmer. In his early years Mistral developed a passionate attachment to the language of his region, Provençal dialect. After receiving his law degree in 1851, Mistral started his career as a writer, and published his first poems next year. In 1854 he founded with Roumanille, Jean Brunet, Paul Piera, Anselme Mathieu, Alphonse Tavan and Théodore Aubanel an association, félibres, for the maintenance of language and customs of Provençe. The group started to publish an annual journal, Armana Prouvençau.

In 1859 appeared Mistral's pastoral epic MIRÈIO, a major contribution to the Provençal literary movement. Mistal had shown the manuscript to the poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), whose enthusiasm paved way for its success. Later the composer Charles Gounod used the poem for his opera Mireille (1864). The central characters 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 sunstroke, and sees just before her death a heavenly boat with the saints coming to take her with them.

After his breakthrough as a poet, Mistral returned from Paris to Maillane, where he lived until his death. Mistral devoted 20 years' work to the scholary dictionary of Provençial, entitled LOU TRESOR DÓU FÉLIBRIGE (The Treasury of Félibres). It was issued between 1880 and 1886. The work contains all the dialects of the language and a wealth of Provençal folklore, traditions, and beliefs.

In the 1880s appeared Mistral's narrative poem about the last days of the popes in Avignon, NERTO, and his only drama, LA RÉINO JANO, six years later. His last great epic, LOU POUÈMO DOU ROSE, was published in 1897. Among Mistral's other works are his memoirs MOUN ESPELIDO (1906) and LES OLIVADOU (1912), a collection of short lyric poems. Mistral died on March 24, 1914.

For further reading: Le sagesse de Mistral by C. Maurras (1931); Mistral by R. Lyle (1953); Introduction to Mistral by R. Aldington (1956); The Lion of Arles by T. Edwards (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 Frederic Mistral by F.M. et al (1986) - Alphonse Daudet met Mistral in 1860 and depicted in Lettres de mon moulin (1869) his visit at Mistral's home in Maillane.

MIRÈIO, (1859)