Mireio

Published in 1859 to great fanfare from French literary society, Mireio was the first of four long narrative poems written by the French author Frederic Mistral. Composed in Occitan, a regional language spoken in southern France, Mireio arose out of the milieu of the Felibrige, a cultural movement centered around Mistral and his compatriots who championed the use of the Occitan language. Rich with references to local Provencal culture and geography, Mireio recounts the joys and sorrows of two young lovers: the titular Mireio, daughter of a rich farmer, and Vincen, a poor basket weaver. Though the two fall madly in love, they find themselves separated by social class and the disapproving attitude of Mireio's parents. In part thanks to Mireio, Mistral went on to win the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature, celebrated by the Nobel Committee for his poetry and his work as a Provencal philologist. Mireio was widely translated, and was also adapted into the French-language opera Mireille by Charles Gounod. Mireio remains a celebrated depiction of Provencal culture to this day. This Standard Ebooks edition of Mireio augments Harriet Waters Preston's unannotated 1890 translation with the annotations from her first translation published in 1872.