CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS

It would be idle to endeavor to determine whether Mistral is to be classed as a great poet, or whether the Felibres have produced a great literature, and nothing is defined when the statement is made that Mistral is or is not a great poet.  His genius may be said to be limited geographically, for if from it were eliminated all that pertains directly to Provence, the remainder would be almost nothing.  The only human nature known to the poet is the human nature of Provence, and while it is perfectly true that a human being in Provence could be typical of human nature in general, and arouse interest in all men through his humanity common to all, the fact is, that Mistral has not sought to express what is of universal interest, but has invariably chosen to present human life in its Provencal aspects and from one point of view only.  A second limitation is found in the unvarying exteriority of his method of presenting human nature.  Never does he probe deeply into the souls of his Provencals.  Very vividly indeed does he reproduce their words and gestures; but of the deeper under-currents, the inner conflicts, the agonies of doubt and indecision, the bitterness of disappointments, the lofty aspirations toward a higher inner life or a closer communion with the universe, the moral problems that shake a human soul, not a syllable.  Nor is he a poet who pours out his own soul into verse.

External nature is for him, again, nature as seen in Provence.  The rocks and trees, the fields and the streams, do not awaken in him a stir of emotions because of their power to compel a mood in any responsive poetic soul, but they excite him primarily as the rocks and trees, the fields and streams of his native region.  He is no mere word-painter.  Rarely do his descriptions appear to exist for their own sake.  They furnish a necessary, fitting, and delightful background to the action of his poems.  They are too often indications of what a Provencal ought to consider admirable or wonderful, they are sometimes spoiled by the poet’s excessive partiality for his own little land.  His work is ever the work of a man with a mission.

There is no profound treatment of the theme of love.  Each of the long poems and his play have a love story as the centre of interest, but the lovers are usually children, and their love utterly without complications.  There is everywhere a lovely purity, a delightful simplicity, a straightforward naturalness that is very charming, but in this theme as in the others, Mistral is incapable of tragic depths and heights.  So it is as regards the religious side of man’s nature.  The poet’s work is filled with allusions to religion; there are countless legends concerning saints and hermits, descriptions of churches and the papal palace, there is the detailed history of the conversion of Provence to Christianity, but the deepest religious spirit is not his.  Only twice in all his work do we come upon a profounder religious sense, in the second half of Lou Prego-Dieu and in Lou Saume de la Penitenci.  There is no doubt that Mistral is a believer, but religious feeling has not a large place in his work; there are no other meditations upon death and destiny.