1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Planche, Jean Baptiste Gustave

PLANCHE, JEAN BAPTISTE GUSTAVE (1808–1857), French critic, was born in Paris on the 16th of February 1808. 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 connection 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 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 the drama 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, Études sur l'école française (1855).

See Ernest Montégut, in the Revue des deux mondes (June 1858); Hatzfeld and Meunier, Les Critiques littéraires XIX^e siècle (1891).