Planche, Jean Baptists Gustave
PLANCHE, JEAN BAPTISTS GUSTAVE (1808-1857), French critic, was born in Paris on the 16th of February 1808. Intro- duced by Alfred de Vigny to Francois Buloz, he began to write for the Revue des deux mondes, and continued to do so until 1840. He resumed his connexion with the journal in 1846 and contributed to it until his death in Paris on the 18th of September 1857. Gustave Planche was an altogether honest critic and refused to accept a place from Napoleon III. for fear of compromising his freedom. He was in early life a fervent admirer of George Sand, and he lavished praise on De Vigny. But he had nothing but scorn for Victor Hugo, whose earlier dramas he characterized as odes, those following Le Roi s'amuse as antitheses, and the later ones as nothing but spectacle. His critical papers were collected under the titles: Portraits lilteraires (1836- 1849); Nouveaux portraits lilteraires (1854); and art criticisms, Etudes sur I'ecole franqaise (1855).
See Ernest Mont6gut, in the Revue des deux mondes (June 1858) ; Hatzfeld and Meunier, Les Critiques litteraires du XIX' specie (1891).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
