"La Guzla" de Prosper Mérimée

This study offers a close‑up look at Prosper Mérimée’s “La Guzla,” the celebrated collection of Slavic‑inspired ballads that pretended to be translations from a mysterious folk singer. Its author, a Serbian scholar who earned a doctorate in France, unpacks the layers of invention and research that lie behind the work, showing how the fictional Hyacinthe Maglanovitch never existed and how the poems are rooted in a web of earlier folk collections, travel notes, and literary borrowings.

The analysis traces the path from Jacob Grimm’s German volumes of Serbian songs through the observations of an 18th‑century Italian naturalist and the notes of French officials in Illyria. By mapping these sources, the book reveals how Mérimée blended authentic folklore with the Romantic era’s love of “local colour,” offering listeners a thoughtful glimpse into the scholarly detective work that illuminates a classic piece of literary history.