Félix Gras

Gras, Félix 

Born May 3. 1844, in Malemort. near Avignon; died Mar. 4, 1901, in Avignon. Provençal author.

The son of a peasant. Gras began his literary career in 1865 with a collection of poems. In 1876 he wrote the collection of poems on popular life The Charcoal Burners, and in 1891 he became the leader of the Félibrige, the association of Provençal authors. In 1881. Gras wrote the heroic poem Toulouse and in 1887 the collection of epic romances The Provençal Romancer. As a prose writer he is known for his satirical accounts of life in papal Avignon in the 14th century— Li Papalino, published in 1891. He also wrote a successful trilogy on the times of the Great French Revolution— The Reds of the South (1896–97; Russian translation, 1897). Gras, who did not sympathize with the Jacobins, idealized the Girondists; however, his novel is imbued with the enthusiasm of the revolutionary struggle and with patriotism.

WORKS

Pravielet, A., and J. R. de Brousse. Anthologie du félibrige. Paris. 1909.
In Russian translation:
Marsel’tsy. Part 1, Revoliutsii; part 2, Terror; part 3. Belyi terror. St. Petersburg, 1911–13. Reissued, Petrograd, 1918.
Terror. Moscow, 1920.
Marsel’skii batal’on.(Revised by M. Zoshchenko.) Petrograd, 1923.
Paskale, piatnadtsatiletnii revoliutsioner. Moscow. 1925.

REFERENCES

Istoriia frantsuzkoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1959.
Ripert, E. Le Félibrige. Paris, 1924. (Contains a bibliography.)
Camproux, Ch. Histoire de la littérature occitane. Paris, 1953.

I. N. GOLENISHCHEV-KUTUZOV