Aubanel, Théodore (1829-86). Foremost lyric poet of the Félibrige; also dramatist, friend of Mallarmé, admired by Valéry. The rich head of a family printing business in Catholic Avignon, Aubanel began writing Provençal poetry after meeting Roumanille at a religious gathering. His love for working-class Jenny Manivet was thwarted by shyness and difference in status. Jenny entered a convent in 1854. Aubanel finally purged his five-year grief for ‘Zani’ in La Mióugrano entreduberto (1860), 49 sensitive, passionate poems in three sections, each ending with a Christian statement to comfort his bleeding heart (symbolized by the half-open pomegranate) from the memory of Zani in her red dress.
Acclaimed in Paris, the collection so enraged Avignon that Aubanel published nothing new until his play Lou Pan dóu pecat (1882, written 1863). Though his happy marriage, reflected in ‘La Venus d'Arle’ (written 1862), brought creative stability and recognition in the 1870s, Aubanel was fascinated by violence and the flesh. Some poems of Li Fiho d'Avignoun (1885, written 1866-7) express carnal desire; Lou Pastre (written 1866, staged 1960) and Lou Raubatòri (written 1872) concern rape and kidnapping. Misunderstood by the Félibrige and Avignon society, he died of apoplexy, leaving inter alia a posthumous collection, Lou Rèire-Soulèu (1899).
— Peter Davies
