Emile Deschamps was prominent in the French Romantic movement. His contemporaries venerated him for his dedication to the principles of Romanticism and for his achievement as a poet, a literary critic, and a translator. Aware that French poetry had become moribund by tying itself to imitation of the ancients, Deschamps became perhaps the most clear-headed and energetic worker of the new cause.

A disciple of both Germaine de Staël and André Chénier, he helped revitalize French poetry by bringing together the mystical, fiery passion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller and the sober, restricted form of the French classical verse. His contribution to the expansion and transformation of French literature included the renewal of one of the oldest and most venerable of poetic genres--the epic poem. The Spanish corpus was the prime source of this poetic inspiration in his early...