ROUMANILLE, JOSEPH

born Aug. 8, 1818, Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France died May 24, 1891, Avignon Provenal poet and teacher, a founder and leader of the Flibrige, a movement dedicated to the restoration and maintenance of Provenal language, literature, and customs. Flibrige stimulated the renaissance of the language and customs of the whole of southern France. While teaching at the Collge Royal of Avignon (later renamed the Lyce Frdric Mistral), Roumanille became a lifelong friend of Frdric Mistral, who was to be the preeminent figure in the Provenal renaissance. Roumanille was both a writer and a scholar of Provenal. His standardization of the orthography of the Provenal language, which he set forth in the introduction to his play La Part dou bon Dieu (1853), is considered the first attempt to regularize spelling and usage in the language. Working with Frdric Mistral, Roumanille then began standardizing Provenal grammar. In 1854 the two, together with five other Provenal poets, founded Flibrige. The following year they established the annual Armana Prouvenau (Provenal Almanac). Roumanille also wrote many works of poetry and prose in Provenal, including the poems of Li Margarideto (1847; The Daisies) and Li Flour de Sauvi (1859; The Sage Flowers).