The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
As may easily be seen, Aubanel writes not, like Roumanille, for his
own people alone. His Muse is more ambitious, and seeks to interest by
appealing to the sentiments in a language polished with all the art
of its sister, the French. There are innumerable exquisite passages
scattered through the work, which make us ready to believe in the
figurative comparison of the prefacer, when he tells us that "the
coral-grains of the 'Opened Pomegranate' will become in Provence the
chaplet of lovers."
If Roumanille and Aubanel contented themselves with the publication of
poems of no very ambitious length, the author of "Mirèio" aimed directly
at enriching his language at the outset with an epic. He has given us in
twelve cantos the song of Provence. He makes us see and feel the life of
Languedoc,--traverse the Crau, that Arabia Petrasa of France,--see
the Rhone, and the fair daughters of Arles, in their picturesque
costumes,--see the wild bulls of the Camargo, the Pampas of the
Mediterranean. We are among the growers of the silk-worm; we hear the
home-songs and talks of the Mas, listen to the people's legends and
tales of witchery, and can study the Middle-Age spirit that still in
these regions endows every shrine with miracles, as we follow the
pilgrimage to the chapel of the Three Marys.
"Mirèio" is all Provence living and breathing before us in a poem. No
wonder, then, that, in the present dearth of poetry in France, this epic
or idyl, call it as you will, was received with acclamations. M. René
Taillandier has consecrated to it one of his most masterly articles
in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Lamartine has devoted to it a whole
_entretien_ in his "Cours de Littérature." It was discussed, quoted,
translated in all the journals of the capital. We may revert to it at
greater length in a future number of the "Atlantic."
The name of Jasmin, the harbor-poet of Agen, is already familiar to the
English public. Professor Longfellow has translated his "Blind Girl of
Castel-Cuillé." His name is known in Paris as well, perhaps, as that of
any other living French poet, if we except Lamartine and Victor Hugo.
Accompanied with a French translation, his principal poems, "Mous
Soubenis," "L'Abuglo de Castel-Cuillé," "Francouneto," "Maltro
l'Innoucento," "Lous Dus Frays Bessous," "La Semmâno d'un Fil," have
been read as much north of the Loire as south.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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