Conférence du Capoulié Pierre Fabre « Dans l’intimité de Frédéric Mistral - Lettres à sa femme »
The 26/04/2025
What do we know about the circumstances in which Frédéric Mistral met the woman who was to become his wife, and above all, what do we know about Frédéric and Marie Mistral in their daily lives? Pierre Fabre will attempt to answer these and many other questions in this absolutely original conference, inviting us to enter into the intimacy of the greatest Provencal poet thanks to a correspondence of almost 450 letters that he has collected, presented, translated and commented on - correspondence that it was impossible to keep unpublished for much longer, finally unveiled to the public for the first time in the year 2024, Year of Frédéric Mistral.
These are just some of the questions Pierre Fabre aims to answer in this absolutely original conference, inviting us to enter into the intimacy of the greatest Provençal poet, thanks to a correspondence of nearly 450 letters that he has collected, presented, translated and commented on - a correspondence that it was impossible to keep unpublished for much longer, finally unveiled to the public for the first time in 2024, Year of Frédéric Mistral.
The letters from Frédéric Mistral to his wife presented in this book came to Pierre Fabre by chance. As they were never intended for publication, they are absolutely unpublished. The author asked himself many questions before putting them together in this collection: for example, about their interest in seemingly anecdotal subjects, or about their contribution to our knowledge of Mistralian philosophy, in comparison with others already published.
Nevertheless, these letters constitute a significant new body of work for our knowledge of Mistral's life and work. They provide an opportunity to approach Frédéric Mistral in a way that goes beyond conventional discourse, giving him back some of his humanity. Did we know Mistral in his day-to-day life? And did we know the woman who had shared almost forty years of his life, apart from her status as a "noble widow" after Mistral's death?
"The work presented here takes into consideration a total corpus of 453 original letters, made up of 287 letters from Frédéric Mistral to Marie Rivière and 166 letters from Marie Rivière to Frédéric Mistral. It is not a new biography. It has no pretensions other than to complement existing ones, or to correct certain points by a series of successive touches. The reader will perhaps become no more or no less "Mistralian" as a result. But we don't think they'll remain insensitive. Just as we assume that they will visit the poet's home, the cradle of intimacy, differently from now on, we also suspect that they will (re)discover his writings with renewed eyes." (Excerpt from "Notes liminaires").
The author
Pierre Fabre was born in Marseille in 1957. During the second half of his professional career, he was a teacher's adviser specializing in the teaching of modern languages to the Var education inspector, and a trainer at the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de l'Acadé¬ mie de Nice.
First winner of the Vocation Provençale prize awarded by the Fondation Louis-Vouland in Avignon, and former resident of the Château de Lourmarin, he was capoulié of the Félibrige, the 13th successor to Frédéric Mistral, from 1992 to 2006. Maître ès¬Jeux de l'Académie des Jeux floraux de Toulouse, he is also a cor¬respondant member of the Académie de Marseille. His research focuses on Frédéric Mistral, the history of the Félibrige and Provençal literature.
As a lecturer, he has taken part in a number of conferences and congresses. He has contributed to a number of publications covering the Oc domain, and is the author of a book of interviews (Mistral en héritage, Autres Temps, 2002). He has also edited the unpublished works of Pierre Devoluy (Istòri naciounalo de la Prouvènço e dóu Miejour di Gaulo, 1992) and Joseph d'Arbaud (Jaquet-lou-Gaiard, 2000).
The letters from Frédéric Mistral to his wife presented in this book came to Pierre Fabre by chance. As they were never intended for publication, they are absolutely unpublished. The author asked himself many questions before putting them together in this collection: for example, about their interest in seemingly anecdotal subjects, or about their contribution to our knowledge of Mistralian philosophy, in comparison with others already published.
Nevertheless, these letters constitute a significant new body of work for our knowledge of Mistral's life and work. They provide an opportunity to approach Frédéric Mistral in a way that goes beyond conventional discourse, giving him back some of his humanity. Did we know Mistral in his day-to-day life? And did we know the woman who had shared almost forty years of his life, apart from her status as a "noble widow" after Mistral's death?
"The work presented here takes into consideration a total corpus of 453 original letters, made up of 287 letters from Frédéric Mistral to Marie Rivière and 166 letters from Marie Rivière to Frédéric Mistral. It is not a new biography. It has no pretensions other than to complement existing ones, or to correct certain points by a series of successive touches. The reader will perhaps become no more or no less "Mistralian" as a result. But we don't think they'll remain insensitive. Just as we assume that they will visit the poet's home, the cradle of intimacy, differently from now on, we also suspect that they will (re)discover his writings with renewed eyes." (Excerpt from "Notes liminaires").
The author
Pierre Fabre was born in Marseille in 1957. During the second half of his professional career, he was a teacher's adviser specializing in the teaching of modern languages to the Var education inspector, and a trainer at the Institut Universitaire de Formation des Maîtres de l'Acadé¬ mie de Nice.
First winner of the Vocation Provençale prize awarded by the Fondation Louis-Vouland in Avignon, and former resident of the Château de Lourmarin, he was capoulié of the Félibrige, the 13th successor to Frédéric Mistral, from 1992 to 2006. Maître ès¬Jeux de l'Académie des Jeux floraux de Toulouse, he is also a cor¬respondant member of the Académie de Marseille. His research focuses on Frédéric Mistral, the history of the Félibrige and Provençal literature.
As a lecturer, he has taken part in a number of conferences and congresses. He has contributed to a number of publications covering the Oc domain, and is the author of a book of interviews (Mistral en héritage, Autres Temps, 2002). He has also edited the unpublished works of Pierre Devoluy (Istòri naciounalo de la Prouvènço e dóu Miejour di Gaulo, 1992) and Joseph d'Arbaud (Jaquet-lou-Gaiard, 2000).
Saturday 26 April 2025 at 6 pm.
Free of charge.
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