Provençal literature

Provençal literature originated in the 10th century and flowered in the 12th century with the work of the troubadours, poet-musicians of the 12th–13th centuries. After the decline of the troubadours in the 13th century, Provençal virtually disappeared as a literary medium from the 14th until the 19th century, when Jacques Jasmin (1798–1864) and others paved the way for the Félibrige group of poets, of whom the greatest are Joseph Roumanille, Frédéric Mistral, and Félix Gras (1844–1901).

The earliest Provençal text is an adaptation in verse, consisting of 257 lines and perhaps dating from as early as AD 1000, of part of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae; also from the 11th century is a poem of 593 lines on the life of St Foy of Agen. The ‘golden age’ of Provençal literature opens with the 11 love songs of Guillaume de Poitiers. Some of his poems show a realistic eroticism, but in others there are already the beginnings of a different conception of love, that of amour courtois (courtly love), that was to be the characteristic of many later troubadours. The surviving works of the troubadours (many of whom are known by name, though nothing of their work survives) have been preserved in about 30 chansonniers, anthologies dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. The Albigensian Crusade 1208–29 (see Albigenses) destroyed the influence of the southern nobility, dealing an almost fatal blow to the literature they had encouraged.

While the prime importance of medieval Provençal literature lies in the field of lyric poetry, there are a few epics and verse romances (though neither genre flourished in the south of France to the extent they did in the north), a contemporary account of the Albigensian Crusade, a number of religious and didactic works, a few religious dramas (no secular dramas are known), and various other texts such as chronicles, medical treatises, and bestiaries.

Provençal literature declined rapidly in the 14th century. There was a partial revival at the time of the Renaissance, the main figures of which are the poets Pey de Garros (c. 1525–1583) of Gascony, Bellaud de la Bellaudière (1532–1588) of Provence, and Godolin (1580–1649) of Toulouse. In the 19th century the poets of the Félibrige aimed to purify and codify the native tongue and, by using it in their literary works, restore it to a position of dignity. Later writers include Valère Bernard (1860–1936), A Perbosc (1861–1944), and Joseph d'Arbaud (1872–1950).