The Project Gutenberg EBook of Frederic Mistral, by Charles Alfred Downer

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Title: Frederic Mistral
Poet and Leader in Provence

Author: Charles Alfred Downer

Release Date: December 12, 2005 [EBook #17293]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: FREDERIC MISTRAL]

Columbia University

_STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURE_

FREDERIC MISTRAL

POET AND LEADER IN PROVENCE

BY

CHARLES ALFRED DOWNER

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGE
OF 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 modern
Provencal renaissance was submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Columbia
University. My interest in Mistral was first awakened by an article from
the pen of the great Romance philologist, Gaston Paris, which appeared
in the _Revue de Paris_ in October, 1894. The idea of writing the book
came to me during a visit to Provence in 1897. Two years later I visited
the south of France again, and had the pleasure of seeing Mistral in his
own home. It is my pleasant duty to express here once again my gratitude
for his kindly hospitality and for his suggestions in regard to works
upon the history of the Felibrige. Not often does he who studies the
works of a poet in a foreign tongue enjoy as I did the privilege of
hearing the verse from the poet's own lips. It was an hour not to be
forgotten, and the beauty of the language has been for me since then as
real as that of music finely rendered, and the force of the poet's
personality was impressed upon me as it scarcely could have been even
from a most sympathetic and searching perusal of his