Deschamps, Émile

Émile Deschamps, (born Feb. 20, 1791, Bourges, Fr.—died April 23, 1871, Versailles), poet prominent in the development of Romanticism.

Deschamps’s literary debut came in 1818, when, with Henri de Latouche, he produced two plays. Five years later, with Victor Hugo, he founded La Muse française, the journal of the Romantic, and the preface to his Études françaises et étrangères (1828) formed a manifesto of the movement. His translations of Romeo and Juliet (1839) and Macbeth (1844), though never performed, were also important. He wrote several libretti, notably that for Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette, and his prose works include Contes physiologiques (1854) and Réalités fantastiques (1854).