Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Jean-Baptiste-Gustave Planche (February 16, 1808 - September 18, 1857), French critic, was born in Paris. Introduced by Alfred de Vigny to François 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. 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 littéraires (1836-1849); Nouveaux portraits littéraires (1854); and art criticisms, Etudes sur l'école française (1855). See Ernest Montégut, in the Revue des deux mondes (June 1858); Hatzfeld and Meunier, Les Critiques littéraires du XIX' siècle (1891). Reference This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.