born Sept. 8, 1830, Maillane, France
died March 25, 1914, Maillane
French poet.
A leader of the 19th-century revival of Provençal, Mistral cofounded the Félibrige, an influential association for maintaining the customs and language of Provence and later the whole of southern France. He devoted 20 years to creating a scholarly dictionary of Provençal. His literary output includes lyrics; short stories; Memoirs of Mistral (1906), his best-known work; and long narrative poems, including Mirèio (1859) and The Song of the Rhône (1897), his two greatest works. He shared the 1904 Nobel Prize for Literature with José Echegaray .
Frédéric Mistral, etching, 1864
By courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.