His earlier work is clearly inspired by his love of Greek literature, and those qualities in Latin literature wherein the Greek genius shines through, possibly also by some mysterious affinity with the Greek spirit resulting from climate or atavism. This never entirely left him. When later he writes of Provence in the Middle Age, of the days of the Troubadours, his manner does not change; his work offers no analogies here with the French Romantic school.
No poet, it would seem, was ever so in love with his own language; no artist ever so loved the mere material he was using. Mistral loves the words he uses, he loves their sound, he loves to hear them from the lips of those about him; he loves the intonations and the cadences of his verse; his love is for the speech itself aside from any meaning it conveys. A beautiful instrument it is indeed. Possibly nothing is more peculiarly striking about him than this extreme enthusiasm for his golden speech, his lengo d'or.
To him must be conceded the merit of originality, great originality. In seeking the source of many of his conceptions, one is led to the conclusion, and his own testimony bears it out, that they are the creations of his own fancy. If there is much prosaic realism in the Poem of the Rhone, the Prince and the Anglore are purely the children of Mistral's almost naïve imagination, and Calendau and Esterello are attached to the real world of history by the slenderest bonds. When we seek for resemblances between his conceptions and those of other poets, we can undoubtedly find them. Mireille now and then reminds of Daphnis and Chloe, of Hermann and Dorothea, of Evangeline, but the differences are far more in evidence than the resemblances. Esterello is in an attitude toward Calendau not without analogy to that of Beatrice toward Dante, but it would be impossible to find at any point the slightest imitation of Dante. Some readers have been reminded of Faust in reading Nerto, but beyond the scheme of the Devil to secure a woman's soul, there is little similarity. Nothing could be more utterly without philosophy than Nerto. Mistral has drawn his inspirations from within himself; he has not worked over the poems and legends of former poets, or sought much of his subject-matter in the productions of former ages. He has not suffered from the deep reflection, the pondering, and the doubt that destroy originality.
If Mistral had written his poems in French, he would certainly have stood apart from the general line of French poets. It would have been impossible to attach him to any of the so-called "schools" of poetry that have followed one another during this century in France. He is as unlike the Romantics as he is unlike the Parnassians. M. Brunetière would find no difficulty in applying to his work the general epithet of "social" that so well characterizes French literature considered in its main current, for Mistral always sings to his fellow-men to move them, to persuade them, to stir their hearts. Almost all of his poems in the lyrical form show him as the spokesman of his fellows or as the leader urging them to action. He is therefore not of the school of "Art for Art's sake," but his art is consecrated to the cause he represents.
His thought is ever pure and high; his lessons are lessons of love, of noble aims, of energy and enthusiasm. He is full of love for the best in the past, love of his native soil, love of his native landscapes, love of the men about him, love of his country. He is a poet of the "Gai Saber," joyous and healthy, he has never felt a trace of the bitterness, the disenchantment, the gloom and the pain of a Byron or a Leopardi. He is eminently representative of the race he seeks to glorify in its own eyes and in the world's, himself a type of that race at its very best, with all its exuberance and energy, with its need of outward manifestation, life and movement. An important place must be assigned to him among those who have bodied forth their poetic conceptions in the various euphonious forms of speech descended from the ancient speech of Rome.
In Provence, and far beyond its borders, he is known and loved. His activity has not ceased. His voice is still heard, clear, strong, hopeful, inspiring. Mireille is sung in the ruined Roman theatre at Aries, museums are founded to preserve Provençal art and antiquities, the Felibrean feasts continue with unabated enthusiasm. Mistral's life is a successful life; he has revived a language, created a literature, inspired a people. So potent is art to-day in the old land of the Troubadours. All the charm and beauty of that sunny land, all that is enchanting in its past, all the best, in the ideal sense, that may be hoped for in its future, is expressed in his musical, limpid, lovely verse. Such a poet and such a leader of men is rare in the annals of literature. Such complete oneness of purpose and of achievement is rare among men.
APPENDIX
We offer here a literal prose translation of the Psalm of Penitence.