SOURCE: "Theophile Gautier," in Captain Fracasse, by Theophile Gautier, translated by F. C. de Sumichrast, P. F. Collier & Son, 1902, pp. v-xxii.

In the following essay, de Sumichrast examines Gautier's use of beauty, wit, picturesqueness, and realism in his works, particularly as seen in his novel Captain Fracasse. The critic also argues that although Gautier is perhaps one of the least recognized members of the Romanticist school, he is in fact "the soundest Romanticist and also the most typical Frenchman of them all."

It is probable that to the average reader of French literature, whether in the original or in translations, the name of Théophile Gautier would not at once occur were he to recall the important members of the great Romanticist school that made the beginning of the last century so illustrious and interesting. Chateaubriand, the founder of the school, the creator and exponent of the melancholy...