Youth
He was born in Pont-l'Abbé, Finistère into a poor family. His father died in 1911, leaving eight children to be raised by his young widow. Taken in by Catholic missionaries, he moved to Spain as a seminarian, living in the Basque region and then Castille. He met Jakez Riou and while conducting literary, scientific and religious studies, they explored the literary potential of the Breton language, aspiring to give it a refined form unsullied by convention.
Having abandoned his religious training, he met, while on military service in Rennes, officials of the nationalist group Unvaniezh Yaouankiz Breiz, which led to the publication of his first article in support of Breton nationalism in the journal Breiz Atao.
Read more about this topic: Youenn Drezen
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument.
When you are dead, you should be such a one
As you are now; for you are cold and stern.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of his enthusiasm, and there are now men,—if indeed I can speak in the plural number,—more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest of sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell me some medicinal use for every plant I could show him ... proving himself as good as his word. According to his account, he had acquired such knowledge in his youth from a wise old Indian with whom he associated, and he lamented that the present generation of Indians “had lost a great deal.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)