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 Provençal 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 Félibrige. 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 works. His great influence in southern France and his great personal popularity are not difficult to understand when one has seen the man.