Alfred Victor Vigny, comte de

Alfred Victor Vigny, comte de , 1797-1863, French poet, novelist, and dramatist. One of the foremost romantics, Vigny expressed a philosophy of stoical pessimism, stressing the lonely struggle of the individual in a hostile universe. Though physically weak, he was sent to military school and became an officer in 1814, resigning in 1827. His best-known poems are found in Poèmes antiques et modernes (1826), containing "Éloa" and his famous "Moïse," and in Destinées (1864). His prose works include the novels Cinq-Mars (1826, tr. The Spider and the Fly, 1925), Stello (1832), Servitude et grandeur militaires (1835, tr. The Military Necessity, 1953), and Chatterton (1835, tr. 1908), a play. A selection of his own notes comprises Journal d'un poète (1867). Unlike other romantics of his period, he did not emphasize personal emotion; instead he presented his ideas through general symbols with dramatic force. His reputation, temporarily dimmed by that of Hugo and Lamartine, was revived by the time of Baudelaire.

Bibliography: See studies by J. Doolittle (1967) and A. Whitridge (1933, repr. 1971).