Alfred de Vigny

Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), French poet, novelist, and dramatist, born in Loches, in Touraine, and educated in Paris. He entered the military at the age of 17 and after 12 years as an officer in the French army became a man of letters, associating himself with the literary movement known as romanticism. He established his reputation with his collected Poèmes antiques et modernes (1826). Although later eclipsed by his contemporaries, the poets Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset, Vigny was regarded as the leader of the early years of romanticism. He was an intellectual and philosophical writer, and his work—the best of which appears in the poems of Les Destinées (pub. posthumously 1864)—expresses a deep spiritual isolation and a corresponding stress on human values. His works include the historical novel Cinq Mars (1826; trans. 1847) and the romantic drama Chatterton (1835; trans. 1908), based on the life of the British poet Thomas Chatterton. Journal d'un poète (pub. posthumously 1867) is a collection of his pensées, or thoughts, which inform much of his writing.