François-Marie Luzel
| François Marie Luzel | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 6 June 1821 Plouaret, France |
| Died | 26 February 1895 Quimper, France |
| Pen name | Fanch ar Moal, Alan Bleung-Brug, Jean de Guernaham, Raoul Keramborgne, Jobik Berbiquet, Gabik Kergoz, Fanch Kerloho, Raoul Luzel. |
| Occupation | ethnographer, poet, folklorist |
| Nationality | France |
| Genre | oral literature, folklore |
| Notable works | Melodies and Songs from Low-Brittany |
François-Marie Luzel (6 June 1821 - 26 February 1895), often known by his Breton name Fañch an Uhel, was a French folklorist and Breton-language poet.
Luzel was born in the manor of Keramborgne, which then formed part of the commune of Plouaret (which, nowadays, is part of the commune of Le Vieux-Marché, Côtes-d'Armor. His father, François, and his mother, Rosalie le Gac, were peasants, but Luzel had a peaceful childhood in his home town, making friends (including the future painter Yan Dargent, and attending many veillées, which were traditional parties held after dark where the villagepeople would assemble and pass the long winter nights in one another's company, often listening to ancestral stories. Thanks to his uncle, Julien-Marie Huërou, he was able to go to the Royal College of Rennes, where Huërou taught.
There, he met the future historian Arthur de La Borderie, and Émile Grimaud, who became the sub-editor of the Revue de Bretagne et de Vendée. As a young man, he aspired to be a naval doctor, and went to study to such an end in Brest. Instead of becoming a naval doctor, he went down a different route towards being a professor, but could not find a fixed post, which made his life rather nomadic. An encounter with Adolphe Orain, a folklorist of Upper Brittany, gave him some direction, and, with the support of Ernest Renan, he managed to obtain from the Minister for State Education the means to go search for old literary texts in Basse-Bretagne. He succeeded in collecting a huge corpus of songs, tales, legends and plays, enough to make several books. The majority of the contents of this abundant collection came from Tréguier and the province of Brittany that surrounds it, Trégor. Marguerite Philippe (in Breton, Marc'harit Fulup) is amongst most known of the people whose folklore Luzel collected. After publishing a book including some of his own poetry in 1865, entitled Bepred Breizad, he published in 1868 a selection of the works that he collected, under the name Chants et chansons populaires de la Basse-Bretagne' (Melodies and Songs from Low-Brittany.) There were several volumes of this work, including a volume dedicated to Gwerziou (Laments) and Soniou (Songs.) A year later, a follow-up of sorts appeared, entitled Contes et Récits populaires des Bretons armoricains (Popular Tales and Stories of the Armorican Bretons).
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