A poet, writer, dramatist, and self-styled "moraliste épique," Alfred de Vigny was also a forerunner of sorts, the first to attempt in verse what François-René de Chateaubriand had attempted in prose. In his Génie du christianisme, ou beautés de la religion (1802; translated as The Genius of Christianity, or The Spirit and Beauty of the Christian Religion, 1802) Chateaubriand argued that Christian narrative could rival pagan myth as the matter or source of the epic and the marvelous; in Les Martyrs, ou le triomphe de la religion chrétienne (1809; translated as The Martyrs, or The Triumph of the Christian Religion, 1812) he sought to revive the epic on the basis of that contention. Chateaubriand's ambition became that of the Romantic school of poets. Through his innovative use of symbolism to infuse epic and dramatic poetry with a philosophic purpose and meaning, Vigny...