Introduction

The borders of Provence – be them geographical, cultural or linguistic – have always been hard to define. Historical entity or locus of the mind? Wide Mediterranean area roughly coinciding with the South of France or territory constrained on the contrary between the Rhône delta and the Alps? And what about the idiom spoken there? Dialect, patois or language in its own right and literature? And if so – since of course it is so – whose language? A medium common to many Occitanian and therefore non strictly Provençal speakers and writers, including the Troubadours? No wonder, therefore, if the few British travellers who braved the combined hardships of horrendous roads, Rhône navigation and the danger of frequent robberies found it hard to form a coherent image out of the scanty and fragmentary information concerning the area. The essay introduces a volume that fills a gap in Anglo-French studies by mapping out and critically investigating the presence of British writers and artists in Provence and the poetical challenges that the French region posed to them,